O. O. (Oliver Otis) Howard

author

O. O. (Oliver Otis) Howard

1830–1909

A Union general remembered for battlefield courage, he also played a major role in the difficult years after the Civil War. His life touches military history, emancipation, western campaigns, and the founding of Howard University.

1 Audiobook

Campfire and battlefield : $b an illustrated history of the campaigns and conflicts of the great Civil War

Campfire and battlefield : $b an illustrated history of the campaigns and conflicts of the great Civil War

by Rossiter Johnson, Selden Connor, John Brown Gordon, Henry W. B. (Henry Ward Beecher) Howard, O. O. (Oliver Otis) Howard, John Tyler Morgan, John Clark Ridpath

About the author

Born in Maine in 1830, Oliver Otis Howard graduated from West Point and went on to become a career U.S. Army officer. During the Civil War he rose to prominence as a Union general and lost his right arm at the Battle of Fair Oaks in 1862, an injury that became one of the defining facts of his public image.

After the war, Howard led the Freedmen’s Bureau, the federal agency created to help formerly enslaved people and war refugees during Reconstruction. He was also closely connected with the founding of Howard University in Washington, D.C., which was named for him, and he later served as its president.

His later career took him to the American West, where he commanded U.S. forces in campaigns that included the Nez Perce War. Howard died in 1909, leaving behind a legacy that is both notable and complicated: he was widely praised in his time for duty and reform work, while his role in western military campaigns places him at the center of harder parts of American history as well.