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Ormsby Mitchel Biography

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MITCHEL, Ormsby McKnight (1810-62), An American astronomer, educator, and soldier. He was born in Union Co., Ky., was a clerk for some time in a country store, and graduated at West Point in 1829. From 1829 to 1831 he was assistant professor of mathematics at West Point and in 1832 he resigned from the service. He practiced law in Cincinnati from 1832 to 1834 and for the next 10 years was professor of mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy in the Cincinnati College. In 1836-37 he was chief engineer of the Little Miami Railroad and was consulting engineer to the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad in 1848-53. He was adjutant general of Ohio in 1847. He was an enthusiastic student of astronomy and took an important part in procuring the erection of an observatory in Cincinnati, of which, when it was completed, he became the director, combining with this position in 1859 the directorship of the Dudley Observatory in Albany. On the outbreak of the Civil War he entered the Federal army, was commissioned a brigadier general of volunteers in August, 1861, and from September 19 to November 15 commanded the Department of the Ohio. In April, 1862, he was promoted to a major-generalship of volunteers in recognition of a brilliant movement into northern Alabama whereby he secured the control of 120 miles of railway. On Sept. 17, 1862, he was placed in command of the Department of the South, but before he had time to begin active operations he was attacked by yellow fever and died at Beaufort, S. C. He made several important astronomical discoveries, including, with exactness, that of the period of rotation of the planet Mars. He edited the Sidereal Messenger, which he founded, from 1846 to 1848, and published a number of works on. astronomical subjects, including The Planetary and Stellar Worlds (1848); The Orbs of Heaven (1851); Popular Astronomy (1860), which, with The Orbs of Heaven, was reissued at London in 1892. The Astronomy of the Bible was published posthumously in 1863. Consult the biography by F. A. Mitchel (Boston, 1887).