The Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Representative Men of Chicago, Milwaukee and the World's Columbian Exposition

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BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY AND PORTRAIT GALLERY.
teenth year, but was possessed of a studious mind and a thirst for knowledge. He had long cher¬ ished the hope that he might attend Corydon Seminary, an educational institution near by. Through the aid of his elder brother, Benjamin, who had just returned from the Mexican War, and Mr. Samuel Wright, who was county auditor, and who gave young Gresham a position in his office where he could earn enough to pay his board, his hope was realized and he was enabled to spend one year at the County Seminary and one year at the State University at Bloomington. Thus equipped, he secured a position in the county clerk's office at Corydon, and devoted his leisure to the study of law under the direction of Judge William Porter, who took a deep interest in him. In this way he studied and worked some three years, and in 1854 was admitted to the bar, and became a partner with Mr. Thomas C. Slaughter, who afterwards became Judge of the circuit court. Upon the jformatlon of the Republican party in 1855, he allied himself with it, and entered heart¬ ily into the exciting political campaigns that fol¬ lowed. After the nomination of John C. Fre¬ mont for the presidency, in 1856, at the Phila¬ delphia convention, to which his partner was a delegate, young Gresham stumped Harrison county for the '' path-finder," with the result that more Republican votes were cast in that county than in all the rest of the district between New Albany and Evansville. As a speaker at the bar or on the stump, he became noted for his clear, forceful and exact statements that never failed to carry conviction, while as a lawyer he was studi¬ ous and pains-taking and conscientious.
In i860 he was elected to the general assembly of Indiana from Harrison county, overcoming the democratic majority of ^v^ hundred in the county, by a personal canvass of every school dis¬ trict in the county. In the legislature he was chairman of the committee on military affairs, and as such introduced and secured the passage of the militia bill. He was skilled in military tactics, and for some time Avas captain of a" com¬ pany at Corydon called the " Spencer Rifles," and upon the opening of the civil war he was ap¬ pointed by Governor Morton lieutenant-colonel of the Thirty-eighth Indiana regiment, but before it entered the service he became colonel of the > Fifty-third   regiment.     This  Avas  in   December,
1861. PI is military record is one of which he may justly be proud ; his regiment was ordered to St. Louis, whence, after the fall of Donelson, it Avas sent to join General Grant at Savannah, Tennessee, where it Avas assigned to Veatch's brigade in Hurlbut's division ; with his regiment. Colonel Gresham participated in the siege of Corinth, and afterward was engaged in numerous expeditions south of the Memphis and Charleston railroad. He was in the North Mississippi cam¬ paign with Grant's army, and afterwards was stationed at Memphis till 1863. Later he joined General Grant's forces at Vicksburg. Colonel Gresham's conduct had won the admiration of his superior officers—particularly General Grant, who Avith General Sherman recommended his appoint¬ ment as brigadier general, which Avas made on August II, 1863, and he was put in command of the post of Natchez and later succeeded General Crocker in command of the district of Natchez. His judicious government of that city attracted the friendship of all parties. In the spring of 1864 he w^as put in command of a division in the seventeenth corps of the Army of Tennessee, to participate in the Atlanta campaign. His sol¬ dierly demeanor strongly commended him to Gen¬ eral McPherson, Avho commanded the army, and General Frank Blair, Avho had command of the corps, and he Avas active in the numerous engage¬ ments of that campaign until July 20. On that day, in the battle of Leggett's Hill, he Avas severly wounded by a bullet Avhich struck his leg below the knee. On the following day, under the per¬ sonal direction of General McPherson, he Avas carried to the railroad station, and thence taken to New Albany, where he Avas confined for more than a year, nursed by his faithful wife. He Avas obliged to use crutches several years.
After the close of the w^ar he resumed his pro¬ fession at NcAV Albany ; he was nominated for Congress in 1866, and while he won many Demo¬ cratic friends, he (the district was overAvhelm- ingly Democratic) was defeated at the polls by Mr. M. C. Kerr. During that year he Avas ap¬ pointed financial agent of the State, and so con¬ tinued until 1869. When General Grant became president, he tendered General Gresham the col- lectorship at New Orleans, Avhich was declined. He went to Washington in the interest of a friend whose appointment as district attorney of Indiana