THE HERO OF FORT FISHER Maj. Gen. Newton M. Curtis Died Sud- denly in New York. One of the famous northern brigade commanders of the civil war died sud- denly in New York the other day in the person of Maj. Gen. Newton M. Curtis, ex-congressman, author and friend of Lincoln. Gen. Curtis had lived in New York since 1908, when he was appointed assistant inspector gen- eral of the National Home for Dis- abled Soldiers. The general was a giant in stature and his great height, six feet six inches, served as an intro- duction to Abrham Lincoln in 1856, when Curtis, then a school teacher in Illinois, entered a railroad station where Lincoln was waiting. The lat- ter, then a lawyer, proposed to meas- ure his height with Mr. Curtis. The future general proved the taller, whereupon Lincoln exclaimed: "He's 10 feet taller than a rod, straight as an arrow, thin as a shingle and with- out a knothole." The two were firm friends thereafter. Maj. Gen. Curtis served with distinc- tion through the civil war, and in 1865 was wounded four times--one of the bullets destroying his left eye--in leading the charge on Fort Fisher, in North Carolina. The act of heroism gave him the title of "the hero of Fort Fisher." The wide sale of his book, From Bull Run to Chancellorsville, induced him to begin the writing of Reminiscences of the Civil War, which was half com- pleted at his death. St. Lawrence Uni- versity awarded him the degree of LL. D. in 1906 for his literary work. He was born May 31, 1835, in De Peyster, N.Y., and was graduated from Wesleyan Seminary in 1855, leav- ing the same year to teach school in Illinois. He married Miss Phoebe Davis, a friend of Lincoln and distant relative of Jefferson Davis, and re- turned to become postmaster of his native town in 1857. The title of colonel was given him for recruiting the greater part of the Sixteenth New York Volunteers when the civil war began. His elevation to the rank of lieutenant colonel was fol- lowed by his transfer as colonel to the One Hundred and Forty-second New York Infantry. Commissioned in 1865 as brevet brigadier general, in charge of three brigades, he led the charge on Fort Fisher, and was made major gen- eral for gallantry in this action, the last before he was mustered out, in January, 1866. Maj. Gen. Curtis was a special treas- ury agent, 1867-'80; representative from St. Lawrence county in the State Legislature, 1883-'85; member of Con- gress, 1891-'97. He was a past com- mander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, president of the As- sociation of the Army of the Potomac and a member of the Authors' Club, the Loyal Legion and other organizations. For a great many years he resided in Ogdensburg and was particularly well known in northern and central New York.
Maintained by Sue Greenhagen.