Oliver Otis Howard

Oliver Otis Howard (1830-1909), a general on the Union side in the American Civil War, was commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau and helped establish an educational system for Southern African Americans.

Oliver Otis Howard was born on Nov. 8, 1830, on a farm in Leeds Township, Maine. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1850 and entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. After graduating fourth in his class in 1854, he held minor Army appointments before returning to West Point as an instructor of mathematics.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Howard became colonel of the 3d Maine Regiment. He held important commands in the Army of the Potomac and participated in most of the major battles in the eastern theater. He lost his right arm at the Battle of Fair Oaks, Va., in 1862. A devout Congregationalist, he earned the sobriquet of "the Christian Soldier." He commanded a Union Army corps at Chancellorsville and at Gettysburg and fought with the Army of the Tennessee, which captured Atlanta. By 1864 he had risen to brigadier general in the Regular Army. In July 1864 he took command of the Army of the Tennessee and led part of Gen. William T. Sherman's troops on the march through Georgia.

Howard's sympathetic interest in African Americans led president Andrew Johnson to appoint his commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau in May 1865. Though one generation of American historians charged the Bureau with fostering racial discord in the South and exploiting the misery of the defeated Confederates, it is now believed that the Bureau followed a moderate course, often adopting the planters' viewpoint in contract disputes with freed slaves, and helped facilitate the return of confiscated lands to their former Confederate owners. The Bureau's most constructive achievement was its partnership with Northern missionary societies in establishing more than a thousand schools for freed slaves, out of which evolved public schools for African Americans and the network of Southern African American colleges. The foremost African American college, Howard University, was named after the commissioner, who served as its president from 1869 to 1874.

Howard returned to Army life in 1874. He commanded expeditions against Indians in the West in 1877 and 1878. He was superintendent of West Point from 1880 to 1882. From 1886 until his retirement in 1894, he commanded the prestigious Division of the East. Howard wrote 10 books, several dealing with his work among Native and African Americans. He died on Oct. 26, 1909.

Further Reading

The Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard (2 vols., 1907) is a basic source. A sympathetic modern biography is John A. Carpenter, Sword and Olive Branch: Oliver Otis Howard (1964). See also George R. Bentley, A History of theFreedmen's Bureau (1955), which treats Howard impartially. William McFeely, Yankee Stepfather: General O. O. Howard and the Freedmen (1968), is critical of Howard.

Additional Sources

Famous Indian chiefs I have known, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.

Weland, Gerald, O.O. Howard, Union general, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 1995.

Weland, Gerald, Of vision and valor: General Oliver O. Howard, a biography, Canton, Ohio: Daring Pub. Group, 1991. □

Oliver Otis Howard 1830–1909, Union general in the Civil War, founder of Howard Univ ., b. Leeds, Maine, grad. Bowdoin College, 1850, and West Point, 1854. Made a brigadier general of volunteers (Sept., 1861), he fought in the East from the first battle of Bull Run through the Gettysburg campaign . Howard lost his right arm at Fair Oaks in the Peninsular campaign (1862). His 11th Corps was completely routed by Stonewall Jackson's flank attack in the battle of Chancellorsville . On the first day at Gettysburg, Howard, assuming command after J. F. Reynolds was killed, was driven back with heavy losses to Cemetery Hill. His corps constituted part of the Union reinforcements under Hooker in the Chattanooga campaign . In the Atlanta campaign he commanded the Army of the Tennessee after the death of J. B. McPherson , and he led it in Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas.

President Andrew Johnson made Howard, who was devoted to the cause of African-American betterment, chief commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau in May, 1865. The bureau, under difficult circumstances, provided necessary and useful services. Although some officials were dishonest, the corruption has sometimes been overstated. Howard himself was honest; but he was not an able administrator. A founder (1867) of Howard Univ. (named for him), he was its president (1869–73). He later helped to found Lincoln Memorial Univ. in Tennessee.

As commander of the Dept. of the Columbia (1874–81), Howard directed several campaigns against the Native Americans and negotiated with Chief Joseph in 1877. In 1886 he was promoted to major general and assigned to command the Division of the East; he held this post until his retirement in 1894. He wrote biographies of Chief Joseph (1881) and Zachary Taylor (1892), as well as Famous Indian Chiefs I Have Known (1908) and an autobiography (1907).

Bibliography: See biography by J. A. Carpenter (1964); study by W. S. McFeely (1968).

Howard, Oliver Otis (1830–1909) Union officer, born Leeds, Maine. Howard fought at First Bull Run (1861) and commanded troops at Antietam (1862) and Fredericksburg (1862) before being routed at Chancellorsville (1863) by Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. They later performed well at Chattanooga (1863), and in 1864 Howard was given command of the Army of the Tennessee. His men played a key role in forcing the abandonment of Atlanta to William T. Sherman and took part in the March to the Sea (1864–65). After the war, Howard was put in charge of the Freedmen's Bureau, which managed southern lands abandoned during wartime and arranged for their distribution to emancipated slaves. Despite the bureau's failures in the area of land management, under Howard it met with considerable success in its educational endeavors and its support for black veterans.

Howard cofounded Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1867 and served as its president from 1869 to 1874.

Howard, Oliver Otis (1830–1909) US general. He fought in the American Civil War and, commanding the Army of the Tennessee, accompanied General William T. Sherman on his march through Georgia. After the war he headed the Freedmen's Bureau that aided former slaves and was a founder and president (1869–73) of Howard University.