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Isaac Ingalls Stevens Biography

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STEVENS, Isaac Ingalls (1818-62). An American soldier and administrator, born at North Andover, Mass., and graduated at West Point in 1839. He joined General Scott's army in Mexico as adjutant of engineers in 1847, and was in its important engagements. In 1849 he became assistant in charge of the United States Coast Survey office at Washington, but resigned from the army in 1852 to accept the governorship of Washington Territory. In 1855 the Washington Indians revolted. Stevens at once suppressed the insurrection, and arrested Chief Justice Lander, who had issued writs of habeas corpus for Indian prisoners. On the outbreak of the Civil War he was commissioned colonel of the Seventy-ninth New York Volunteers, and later was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. He took part at Stone River and Secessionville. On July 4, 1862, he was promoted to the rank of major general, and during August took part in the campaign in northern Virginia, fighting at the second battle of Bull Run and at Chantilly. At the latter, while leading a charge, he was killed, Sept. 1, 1862. He published Campaigns of the Rio Grande and Mexico (1851).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 519-520.