Dromo's Den

[Up] [Dromo's Den]

John Logan Biography

John Logan Image

LOGAN, John Alexander (1826-86). An American soldier and political leader, born in Jackson Co., Ill., Feb. 9, 1826. He attended Shiloh College for a time and received a limited education. At the outbreak of the war with Mexico he enlisted as a private and became quartermaster of his regiment, with the rank of first lieutenant. In 1851 he graduated at the Louisville University and was afterward admitted to the bar. He was a member of the Illinois Legislature in 1852-53 and in 1856-57, was prosecuting attorney from 1853 to 1857, and was elected to Congress in 1858 as a Douglas Democrat. He was reëlected in 1860, but resigned his seat in 1861 to enter the army. He was made colonel of the Thirty-first Illinois Volunteers and led the regiment at Belmont, Fort Henry, and Fort Donelson; was wounded in the latter engagement, and in March, 1862, was appointed brigadier general of volunteers and a few months later major general. In the Vicksburg campaign he was in command of a division of the Seventeenth Corps and distinguished himself at Port Gibson and Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hill, and in the siege of Vicksburg. His command was the first to enter the town, of which he was appointed military governor. In 1863 he was put in command of the Fifteenth Corps. After the death of McPherson, he took command for a few days of the Army of the Tennessee in front of Atlanta in July, 1864. On being relieved by Gen. 0. 0. Howard, he returned to the command of his corps, which he led until the fall of Atlanta, when he obtained leave of absence to take part in the political, campaign for the reëlection of Abraham Lincoln as President. He afterward rejoined his corps, leading it in the march through the Carolinas.

He was subsequently elected to Congress for two successive terms as a Republican, serving from 1867 to 1871, and was one of the managers of the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. He was commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic from 1868 to 1871. In 1871 he was elected to the United States Senate. Soon after his admission to the Senate he distinguished himself by a speech on reconstruction. At the expiration of his term, in 1877, be settled in Chicago and began to practice law, but after a short interval of retirement was reëlected to the Senate. During his career in Congress he made a number of notable speeches, characterized by force and brilliancy. In 1880 be spoke for four consecutive days upon the Fitz-John Porter Bill, opposing the restoration of Porter to the army. He was a candidate for the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention at Chicago in 1894, and after the ballot was announced which gave that nomination to James G. Blaine, he was nominated by acclamation as the candidate for Vice President. Soon after the defeat of the Republican ticket he was once more elected by the Republicans of Illinois as United States Senator. He died at Washington, Dec. 26, 1886. James G. Blaine said of him that no other man in the history of the country had combined the elements of successful military and legislative leadership in such an eminent degree. Major General Logan wrote a volume on the Civil War, entitled The Great Conspiracy: Its Origin and History (1886), a partisan account; and The Volunteer Soldier of America (1888). Consult G. F. Byron Andrews, Biography of General John A. Logan, with an Account of his Public Services in Peace and in War (New York, 1884), and Dawson, The Life and Services of General John A. Logan as Soldier and Statesman (Chicago, 1887).