Butler County Genealogy Trails Kansas Alfred Washington Ellet Bio

BUTLER COUNTY'S EIGHTY YEARS BIOS

ALFRED WASHINGTON ELLET

(transcribed by Peggy Luce)

Gen. Alfred Washington Ellet, Civil War hero; one of the command in the historic capture of Vicksburg; co-adviser and co-operator with Admiral Porter; the personal friend of the immortal Farragut, General Grant and Edwin Stanton; and who successfully pitted his military and naval genius against such Confederate chieftains as Price, Shelby, Chalmers, Marmaduke and Walker, was one of El Dorado’s earliest settlers and, up to the time of his death, January 9, 1895, the city’s leading and most illustrious citizen.

A review of his life, in a volume of his character, cannot do other than suggest his high renown, his fine patriotism and his magnificent personal manhood. The remarkable place in American history which the Ellet family occupies, particularly that of himself and his older brother, Charles Ellet, Jr., famous engineer and naval commander, if related in detail would require an entire book in itself, necessitating months of research by experienced historian, or student. The present sketch, therefore, is but the merest outline, gleaned from histories written by Appleton and Sawyer; from copies of reports and letters on file in the War department, at Washington; from narrative accounts of the Federal operations before Vicksburg; and from Encyclopedias, together with known facts relative to his later life in El Dorado.

The Ellet family in America is of French Huguenot and Quaker stock, going back to the days of William Penn. One branch of the family includes the famous pioneer Quakers, Thomas Lloyd and Samuel Carpenter, each of whom was intimately connected with the earliest Colonial history of Penn’s Woods. The Lloyds are one tracing back to William, the Norman, and even to Charlemagne. Thomas Lloyd founder of the family in America, served many years as Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania and was the son of Charles Lloyd, gentleman of rank and of the ancient family and estate of Dolobran, in Montgomeryshire, North Wales. He died in Philadelphia in 1694. Watson, in his annals of Philadelphia, pays his tribute: “Having established his colony on the broad principles of charity and constitutional freedom, he (Penn) Thomas Lloyd joined the Society of Friends in 1662 and became a highly useful member. He arrived in Pennsylvania in 1683 and died July 10, 1694, honored by all who knew him.” Samuel Carpenter also was a Quaker and a co-worker with Penn. He was merchant and prominent in affairs of state. He died in 1714, being then the treasurer of the Province.

Samuel Carpenter settled near what now is Salem, New Jersey, and from the union of his daughter to Charles Ellet, of French Huguenot extraction and whose father came to America about the time of Carpenter, the American family of Ellets originates. Of this marriage, a son, Charles Ellet, Jr., was born, who married Mary Israel, a daughter of Israel Israel, a Philadelphia merchant of great wealth, influence and patriotism and a prominent member of the Committee of Safety, which did much to establish American Independence. Charles and Mary Ellet became the parents of six sons, four of whom grew to manhood and all attained to outstanding distinction. They were Charles Ellet, Jr., of Philadelphia, (born January 10, 1810), engineer and inventor, who originated the Naval Steam Ram and built and commanded the Mississippi River Ram Fleet; John I., pioneer of the West, who became well known in the early history of San Francisco and San Jose, California; Dr. Edward Carpenter Ellet, physician at Bunker Hill, Illinois; and Gen. Alfred Washington Ellet, of El Dorado (born October 11, 1820), the subject of this sketch. All were born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Charles and Mary Ellet also were the parents of three daughters, Hannah Ellet, who married George C. Hale, and left a daughter, Marianna, who married C. M. Crandall; Mary Ellet, who married James bailey, and Eliza Ellet who married George S. Bryan and left a daughter, Mary Ellet, who married Robert Albree.

Charles Ellet, Jr., ten years older than Gen. Alfred W. Ellet, helped to build the Chesapeake & Ohio canal; later went to Europe and completed his studies in the ecole Polytechnique, Paris; returned to America and became the directing engineer of the Utica and Schenectady railroad, subsequently, was chief engineer of the James and Kanawha canal. In 1842, he planned and built the first wire suspension bridge in America, it being a foot bridge, stringing it across the Schuylkill river, Philadelphia. In 1847, he designed and built the first suspension bridge across the Niagara river, just below the falls, and it is recorded that his brother, Alfred W. Ellet, built the kite and flew it across the river carrying the wires which formed the first connections. He also laid out the temporary route of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad across the Cumberland Mountains. But probably the most brilliant and important of his civil engineering enterprises was his bold plan to control the flood waters of the Mississippi river and which he presented to Congress after an exhaustive research. His work, “Ellet on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers,” published in 1853 and now on file with the government, is the chief reference book and basis by which modern engineers are endeavoring to meet this gigantic problem today. Records of Congress, since the disastrous flood of 1927, repeatedly refer to this master work. He also has the special distinction of being the first to advocate a definite plan for the use of steam rams in Naval warfare and suggested a plan by which the Russians might destroy the Allied fleet before Sebastopol. Subsequent events proved the plan would have been successful. In 1861, when the Civil War broke out, he contributed his genius and patriotic fervor to the Federal government and developed a plan for the construction and use of steam rams in the large rivers in the Western states of the Confederacy. During the period these plans were being considered, he, with characteristic and patriotic zeal and disgusted with McClellan’s campaign in Virginia, wrote two pamphlets entitled, “The Army of the Potomac and Its Mismanagement” and “Military Incapacity and What It Costs the County,” which were circulated in Congress and the army resulted in the removal of McClellan as commander. The steam ram plans eventually were approved by Secretary Stanton and he (Ellet) was commissioned Colonel of Staff of Engineers by Presidential appointment, this being the highest rank within the power of the president to appoint without an act of Congress. He promptly converted several light draft steamers on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers into rams and these became a flotilla which proved of incalculable and throughout the remainder of the war. Secretary Stanton, on order of President Lincoln, placed the command of the flotilla under the entire direction of Colonel Ellet, with full instructions that he was expected to report “only to the War department.”

This review of the life of Charles Ellet, Jr., is included because in the list of those serving with him aboard boats of the ram flotilla was Lieut.-Col. Alfred W. Ellet, subject of this sketch, and who, when Col. Charles Ellet, Jr., died of wounds received in leading the famous naval engagement before Memphis, Tenn., succeeded to the command and whose gallant services wrote a glorious chapter in the annals of the marine-military history of the United States. In 1824, when Charles and Mary (Israel) Ellet moved to Philadelphia, Alfred W. Ellet was placed in the schools of that city, where he remained until seventeen years of age. Bad health caused him to abandon further education and his parents’ plans for a professional career. He was sent to Illinois and located on a farm and became postmaster, though not yet of age, at Plainview, near Bunker Hill, about twenty-five miles northeast of St. Louis. He was living in Bunker Hill when the dearly defeats were administered to the Federal armies by the Confederates, at the first Bull Run, Manassas an other points in Virginia. His patriotic soul was fired and he enlisted, in July, 1861, at the Arsenal (now Jefferson Barracks), St. Louis, being commissioned Captain of Company I, Ninth Missouri Volunteer Infantry, which he raised individually. The entire regiment was composed of Illinois regiment, but the quota of that state was filled about a week before the company was mustered in. Consequently they were accredited to Missouri, but later became the Fifty-ninth Illinois Infantry. Captain Ellet’s command served with distinction in the memorable Missouri campaigns under Gen. John C. Fremont and Gen. S. R. Curtis.

While in camp, a few months after his enlistment, Capt. Alfred W. Ellet was transferred to and authorized ‘to muster troops for special and hazardous service,” in the Mississippi River Ram Fleet, under command of his brother, Col. Charles Ellet, Jr., and after his brothers’ death in 1862, he was promoted to the command, with the rank of Colonel, Commanding Ram Fleet. And then began a career as brilliant and courageous and heroic as any of which America boasts. For early distinguished service, the War department determined to enlarge his command and, November 1, 1862, Congress commissioned him Brigadier-General of Volunteers, which probably was the pioneer marine organization of the American army. It is appropriate at this time to state, also that in this command was the youthful Edward Carpenter Ellet, son of Gen. Alfred W. Ellet, who as a boy fifteen years of age, ran away from school, enlisted in the Union army and, through the later efforts of his father was transferred to the Ram fleet, rising because of gallantry in action and by recommendation of President Lincoln to Second-Lieutenant and whose life sketch appears in this volume, immediately following this of his father. Suggestive of the manner in which Gen. Alfred W. Ellet, (then Colonel Commanding) handled his command under the deadly guns of the Confederates at Memphis and Vicksburg and the commendatory tributes paid to his heroism and to his genius by Farragut, Halleck and Grant, the following letter, written by Secretary Stanton, attests:

Washington, D. C., July 31, 1862.

Your dispatch of the 23rd instant, relating to the engagement with the Arkansas (Confederate gun boat ram) has just been received and I have referred it to General Halleck, commander-in-chief, to give you instructions on the points desired. For your great gallantry I shall recommend you for nomination by the President, as Brigadier-General. You will return to lieutenant Hunter and his gallant officers and boatmen of your command the thanks of this department. You will please make known to me anything that may be required by your fleet, in order that it may be promptly supplied. The lamentable death of your brother (Col. Charles Ellet, Jr.) deprives the country of the full report expected of him and I wish you would supply it.”

The history of the command of Gen. Alfred W. Ellet and the battles which led directly to his promotion to Bridgadier-General began June 6, 1862, at Memphis when his brother, Col. Charles Ellet, Jr., was mortally wounded. General Ellet, then Colonel Commanding, ordered the Ram Fleet moved down the river to Vicksburg, pluckily passing the Confederate batteries with only bales of cotton to protect their ships’ boilers. At Vicksburg, the rams found themselves alone in a hostile country and surrounded by Confederates. Admiral Farragut, however, with his fleet was below Vicksburg and General Ellet perfected a communication, and a concerted attack on the Confederate stronghold was planned. About this time, the Confederate Gunboat Ram, Arkansas, came down the Yazoo River, running through the combined Farragut and Ellet fleets, then lying at anchor under Vicksburg’s protecting batteries. Although under the direct fire of all Vicksburg batteries, for more than an hour, they rammed the Arkansas and put that daring boat out of commission, returned upstream under fire without the loss of a man, thus paving the way for the later successful assault on the city. For this heroic performance, General Ellet (then Colonel Commanding Ram Fleet) received his commission as Brigadier-General and his son, Edward C. Ellet, was appointed by Congress as a Second-Lieutenant because of his gallant services at the this time.

The Mississippi Ram Fleet and the Marine Brigade, commanded by General Ellet, occupy a unique position in the navy and military annals of the United States; it was one of the pioneer marine organizations, and they probably were the first regularly commissioned United States Marines. It was the only independent volunteer command in the service of the North. It was a part of the army and not of the navy and as such as accountable directly to the secretary of war, and in consequence, every commissioned officer in it was appointed directly by the President and the secretary of war instead of by the governors of the states. Both the Ram Fleet and the Marine Brigade acted in closest co-operation under command of General Ellet and, though subjected to the jealousies of certain naval commanders, it was a most effective force in clearing the Mississippi river and thus it played a decidedly important part in winning the war for the Union. “The outstanding features of its accomplishments” say the historian, Sawyer, “was due to bold intrepidity of its commanding general (Alfred W. Ellet), who, in point of fearless courage had no superior. Another thing which contributed to his success was the fact that he was heart and soul in the cause against slavery and for the preservation of the Union. He was a man of strong moral convictions and character. After the war, as a private citizen in the state of Kansas, he espoused the cause of Prohibition with the same zeal with which he had opposed slavery, entering personally into the state campaign and playing an important part in making Kansas a prohibition state.” And this historian might properly have added that General Ellet’s success at Memphis and Vicksburg was the primary beginning of the collapse of the Confederacy. By perfecting the union of his fleet, which operated north of Vicksburg, with that of Farragut, to the south, the Federal government gained control of the Mississippi river from New Orleans to St. Louis, thus splitting the Confederacy in twain, depriving Lee and Johnston of the resources of Texas, Arkansas and portions of Missouri and Louisiana, which made possible Grant’s Tennessee and Virginia campaigns and Sherman’s epochal march through Georgia and the Carolinas. It is a genuine distinction for El Dorado that the man primarily responsible for this great achievement spent the last thirty years of his life here and called this city his home. A bronze bust of General Ellet was erected by the government in the National Cemetery at Vicksburg. It stands high on the bluff, overlooking the lower town and the great Mississippi River where his heroic services brought new glory to American valor.

Following the war, General Ellet, refusing further appointments by the Federal government on the plea that peace had been declared and his services not needed, returned to Bunker Hill, Illinois, and four years later, came to Kansas, settling in El Dorado. He immediately rose into leadership as a business man and in civic affairs. He, in association with his son, Edward C. Ellet, and his strong personal friend, the late Nathan Frank Frazier, organized the old Bank of El Dorado, which, later, was merged with the Exchange Bank and became the Merchants and, finally, the Farmers & Merchants. He also was directly interested in procuring the old Florence, El Dorado and Walnut Valley (now the Santa Fe) Railroad to build through here in the early 1880’s and otherwise was a most valuable citizen. His death, in 1895, brought together the largest and most notable funeral concourse in the history of this city. The late Alvah Shelden, publisher of the Walnut Valley Times and one of the most distinguished of pioneer Kansas editors, used approximately 3,000 words in reporting General Ellet’s death.

In 1843, General Ellet married Miss Sarah Jane Robarts, a companion of his childhood and a native of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Following their marriage, they lived at Bunker Hill. She long preceded him to the grave. Of this union five children were born, two of whom died in infancy. Those who survived him were: Edward C. Ellet, of El Dorado and later of Mayfield, Santa Clara County, California; William H. Ellet, of El Dorado, former postmaster, and Mrs. Elvira E. Kendall of Chicago. In 1878, General Ellet was united in marriage to Miss Abigail Robarts, a niece of his first wife. No children were born of this marriage. The early bank directorates of El Dorado and Butler County, as well as the first opera house and a local park bore the name of the illustrious and historic Ellet family.

TRIBUTE TO GENERAL ELLET

At the time of the death of General Ellet, I. D. Newell was the General missionary of the Baptist denomination in Kansas. On January 12, 1895, Captain Newell delivered this address at the funeral of General Ellet, in El Dorado, Kansas:

“Though a minister of the gospel, I am not here simply to officiate in the line of my calling. I am here more especially as the friend of General Ellet and his family.

I am not asked to speak at this time because there is nothing to be said by any of those among whom he has lived for wellnigh a quarter of a century. Surely it cannot be, that I am asked to address you on the supposition that I can say the things appropriate to this occasion better than any citizen of this town. I am asked by the friends to address you because of my extended and intimate acquaintance with General Ellet.

I have known him from my boyhood. My acquaintance with him stretches through a period of at least forty-four years. I was intimately associated with him during the war – that testing period which was so well calculated to unveil the virtues which are the light, and reveal the weaknesses which are the shade in the picture of human character.

But here as I am to speak today of my old and dearly beloved commander, what shall I say? I confess that never die I feel more my own poverty of expression, the fullest vocabulary, the choicest selection of terms, are ever to the true soul imperfect exponents of long continued and fondly cherished friendship. The warm grasp of the hand, the kindling glance of the eye, the kindly beaming face, these are ever in life the fullest and most fitting expression of fraternal feelings. But when death with icy hand had touched and blighted friendship’s fairest flowers, how empty, passionless and cold, words seem to a loving heart full to overflowing and yearning for expression.

In the few minutes allotted me for a tribute to my friend, I wish to follow two lines of thought. I shall refer to him first as a citizen, and secondly, as a military man and a commander.

One of the things which most marked General Ellet, was the simplicity of his character. He was, in the fullest and truest sense of the term, a man of the people. He never kept himself aloof from any, but mingled freely with all. He held to no caste. He despised the distinctions of aristocracy and wealth. No one needing information or help, could meet him upon the highway of life without, by his look and bearing, being encouraged to come to him with the confident expectation of receiving such information and help as it was in his power to give. While there was always and everywhere in his conversation and bearing that quiet dignity which ever characterizes true manhood, there was also the noticeable absence of any attempt at self-exaltation. In his association with others, there was upon his part no assumption of superiority, or any demand for deference.

He was a man of sterling integrity and possessed a lofty sense of honor. Knowing him from childhood, I can truthfully say I never heard of any disreputable act of his nature, and with all his native impetuosity would break out against anything men or dishonorable. The most withering denunciation, the strongest invectives I ever heard fall from lips, were forced from him by seeing or hearing of some mean act, some dishonorable deed performed by others. His integrity was like highly temptered steel and his honor like burnished gold.

He had the keenest sense of justice and right. He was ever a friend of the needy and helpless. Nothing more quickly and deeply stirred his soul than attempted oppression of the poor, or assault upon the defenseless. Not a few are the instances coming to my knowledge, when in the course of travel and among strangers he espoused the cause of the weak against the strong, and interposed his personal prowess for their protection. It was this innatic and keen sense of justice, which before the war kindled within his soul intensest hatred of slavery, and which during and since the war made him the sympathizing friend and effiecient helper of the freedmen.

General Ellet was an ardent lover of home and country. Home was for him the sacred altar of devotion. It is ever within the precincts of his home that the real man is most apparent. And, though for years before and during the war I was intimately associated with him I yet learned to love him most from what I saw of him in his own home. His great gentleness, his abounding good cheer, his generous hospitality, these all combined to distill and scatter through his household the sweetest fragrance.

But much as he loved home, he loved country better. Cheerfully he turned his back upon the retirement and comforts of the one, that with all its discomforts and dangers, he might take the field in defense of the other.

Such was Alfred Ellet the citizen. A marked man even in the private walks of life.

As a military man and a commander, he seemed to me to combine in rare degree all that is essential to the solider and the chieftain.

His personal presence was commanding. Tall, erect and stately in his carriage, he was the ideal military figure and the pride of his followers. I shall never forget upon one occasion during the war, walking with him down Fourth Street in St. Louis. Both were in full uniform, he wearing the insignia of his rank with the hate and plume prescribed for general officers. He seemed utterly unconscious of what I soon discovered, that he was the center of observation. Recognizing an old friend, a liveryman of the city, across the way, he called to him and passing out into the middle of the street, greeted him with a warm handshake and tarried there for a moments’ conversation. I waited on the curbstone and listened with delight to the expressions of admiration of my commander, dropped by passerby.

He had a lofty but legitimate ambition. Hearing the summons to civil strife, he comprehended the magnitude of the war and held sacred all the issues involved in it. It was the hour of his country’s need; he desired to contribute to her, valuable service. It was a time of great national peril; he burned to face the most immienent danger, and do the most heroic deeds in her defense. It was a time when treachery and treason were plotting for the destruction of the government; he would give a striking illustration of true loyalty and patriotism. It was a period in the history of his country when special opportunity was given for one to write his name among the illustrious of America; and he desired in boldest characters to inscribe his name upon that roll. This was a noble ambition he possessed in no small measure. And this it was which stimulating him to heroic action, made the name of Ellet illustrious.

He had also the courage of a true soldier. No braver man than General Ellet ever trod the earth. His courage both physical and moral was literally without limit. It knew no measure but emergency, and no emergency ever arose whose demands were in excess of his daring and determination. The rebel ram, Arkansas, thought by the enemy to be invincible, but supposed by our forces to be hopelessly shut up in the Yazoo river, came out from her seclusion and fighting her way through our combined river fleet safely tied up at the wharf at Vicksburg. She was a serious menace to our fleet. General Ellet sought and obtained permission to attempt her destruction. With one of his wooden rams manned by a crew of thirteen, he sped down the river past four miles of rebel batteries belching forth death and destruction at him. Finding it impossible to strike the Arkansas on the downward passage, he passed below her, in the face of the most terrible fire turned his boat about, struck the Arkansas on his return, backed away and escaped up the river past the four miles of booming batteries, and all without the loss of a single man. No more daring and successful act finds record in the history of our Civil War.

There is a sense in which as a commander General Ellet was exacting. He expected from his subalterns, courage and efficiency wellnigh equal his own. Every officer under him understood, that when sent for the accomplishment of a certain duty, no matter how great the difficulty or the danger, the duty must be done. To return without having accomplished that for which he was sent, was to suffer in the General’s esteem, and without the best of cause for failure, to incur disgrace in his eyes. Was it then to be wondered that his soldiers came to feel that there was nothing too hazardous to undertake – nothing their leader proposed they could not do?

But if General Ellet was an exacting commander, he was also generous and just in bestowing the meed of praise to whom it was due. He was too great in soul to appropriate to himself that credit which belonged to others. He who at his bidding went forth to doubtful struggle and dangerous doing and returned victorious, was sure of honor at the General’s hands.

In closing, I speak for myself. In the death of General Ellet, I have lost a friend. There is a lonely feeling in my heart today. The name of General Ellet has become in my home a household word. Though not knowing him as I did, yet through my delineation of his character, and the frequent recital of his deeds, my wife and children have joined their love of him to mine. Outside my own family connection, I shall never love another man as I did him who lies within this casket.

But I must not speak upon this occasion for myself alone. Though not formally commissioned to speak for them, I know that I may safely assume to speak in behalf of my comrades of the Ram Fleet and Marine Brigade. Indeed were I to say nothing in their behalf today, I should merit and doubtless receive their censure. I speak then just a word for my comrades. They are but the remnant of a once proud, powerful command. Their homes are scattered from ocean to ocean and from the lakes to the gulf. But I am sure that did each one know of his general’s death and were the conditions possible, they would be here today , and would stand with me besides this bier with broken hearts, with bowed heads and with tear-stained faces.

An now we go to lay the body of our comrade and friend carefully away, - but we shall never forget him, never.