John Bigelow, Jr.

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John Bigelow, Jr. (born May 12, 1854 in New York City , † February 29, 1936 in Washington, DC ) was an American cavalry officer, writer and university professor. He was head of Yosemite National Park .

Life

John Bigelow, Jr. was born the eldest son of lawyer and statesman John Bigelow. As a child he lived in Paris for five years. He came to Germany at the age of sixteen, enrolled at the University of Berlin at the age of seventeen and switched to the Bergakademie Freiberg a year later , where he studied mining until 1873. There he became a member of the Corps Montania Freiberg . As one of the last Freiberg students, he served 14 days of armed prison in August 1872. After only one year he returned to the United States and attended the United States Military Academy in West Point . In 1877 he left the academy as a lieutenant and served in the 9th and 10th cavalry regiments, two in the following yearsBuffalo Soldier regiments. In the Indian Wars he fought in the Battle of Tularosa in 1880 against the Chiricahua - Apaches under Victorio and until 1886 in the battles against and the hunt for Geronimo . From 1889 to 1890 he was commanded to the Adjutant General's Office of the District of Columbia Militia .

Promoted to major in 1893, Bigelow taught military science from 1894 to 1898 as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . In the Spanish-American War he fought in the 10th Cavalry Regiment on the side of the Rough Riders for Theodore Roosevelt and was wounded in the Battle of San Juan Hill. After the war, Bigelow rejected promotion to lieutenant colonel in 1899 combined with command of a volunteer regiment, which Roosevelt snubbed. This and his committed advocacy for the black Buffalo Soldiers later obstructed a political-diplomatic career that he was striving for after 1910.

After three years in Cuba investigating Spanish war claims, he returned to the western United States with the 10th Cavalry Regiment. In 1904 he became head of Yosemite National Park . With parts of the 9th Buffalo Soldier Cavalry Regiment, he set up a first arboretum there.

In 1905 he resigned and taught modern languages, especially French, as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology until 1910. In the following years he wrote some political writings. When the USA entered World War I , he worked as a lieutenant colonel in the War Department until 1919.

Bigelow had been married to Mary Braxton Dallam since 1883, with whom he had a daughter and a son. The son Braxton, who had volunteered for the British armed forces, died in France in 1917 with Loos as captain of the British Royal Engineers.

Awards

Fonts

  • Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte . 1884
  • The Principles of Strategy , 1894
  • On the bloody Trail of Geronimo
  • Reminiscences of the Santiago campaign , 1899
  • The Campaign of Chancellorsville , 1910
  • American Policy: The Western Hemisphere in its Relation to the Eastern , 1914
  • World Peace: How War cannot be abolished, how it may be abolished , 1916
  • Breaches of Anglo-American Treaties. A study in History and Diplomacy

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Horst-Ulrich Textor: Carcer book at the Königl. Bergakademie zu Freiberg . In: Einst und Jetzt Volume 42, 1997, pp. 96–97, 104
personal data
SURNAME Bigelow, John, Jr.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American cavalry officer, writer and professor, head of Yosemite National Park
DATE OF BIRTH May 12, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH February 29, 1936
Place of death Washington, DC