Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/206

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184
DIX
DIX


ued ill-health led him to resign his commission in the army, 29 July, 1828, after having attained the rank of captain. He then settled in Cooperstown, N. Y., and began the practice of law. In 1880 he removed to Albany, having been appointed adju- tant-general of the state by Gov. Eiios B. Throop, and in 1838 was appointed secretary of state and superintendent of common schools, publishing dur- ing this period numerous reports concerning the schools, and also a very important report in rela- tion to a geological survey of the state (1836). He was a prominent member of the "Albany Regency," who practically ruled the Democratic party of that day. Going out of oflBce in 1840, on the defeat of the democratic candidates and the election of Gen. Harrison to the presidency, he turned to literary pursuits, and was editor-in-chief of " The Northern Light," a journal of a high literary and scientific character, which was published from 1841 till 1843. In 1841 he was elected a member of the assembly. In the following year he went abroad, and spent nearly two years in Madeira, Spain, and Italy. From 1845 till 1849 he was a U. S. senator, being elected as a Democrat, when he became involved in the Free-soil movement, against his judgment and will, but under the pressure of influences that it was impossible for him to resist. He always re- garded the Free-soil movement as a great political blunder, and labored to heal the consequent breach in the Democratic party, as a strenuous supporter of the successive Democratic administrations up to the beginning of the civil war. In 1848 he was nominated by the Free-soil Democratic party as governor, but was overwhelmingly defeated by Hamilton Fish. President Pierce appointed him assistant treasurer of New York, and obtained his consent to be minister to France, but the nomina- tion was never made. In the canvass of 1856 he supported Buchanan and Breckenridge, and in 1860 earnestly opposed the election of Mr. Lincoln, voting for Breckenridge and Lane. In May, 1860, he was appointed postmaster of New York, after the defalcations in that office. On 10 Jan., 1861, at the urgent request of the leading bankers and financiers of New York, he was appointed secretary of the treasury by President Buchanan, and he held that office until the close of the administration. His appointment immediately relieved the govern- ment from a financial deadlock, gave it the funds that it needed but had failed to obtain, and pro- duced a general confidence in its stability. When he took the office there were two revenue cutters at New Orleans, and lie ordered them to New York. The captain of one of them, after consulting with the collector at New Orleans, refused to obey. Secretary Dix thereupon telegraphed: " Tell Lieut. Caldwell to arrest Capt. Breshwood, assume com- mand of the cutter, and obey the order I gave through you. If Capt. Breshwood, after arrest, undertakes to interfere with the command of the cutter, tell. Lieut. Caldwell to consider him as a mutineer, and treat him accordingly. If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." At the beginning of the civil war he took an active part in the formation of the Union defence committee, and was its first president; he also presided at the great meeting in Union square, 24 April, 1861. On the president's first call for troops, he organized and sent to the field seventeen regiments, and was appointed one of the four major-generals to command the New York state forces. In June following he was com- missioned major-general of volunteers, and ordered to Washington by Gen. Scott to take command of the Arlington and Alexandria department. By a successful political intrigue, this disposition was changed, and he was sent in July to Baltimore to take command of the Department of Maryland, which was considered a post of small comparative importance; but, on the defeat of the Federal forces at Bull Run, things changed; Maryland became for the time the centre and key of the national po- sition, and it was through Gen. Dix's energetic and judicious measures that the state and the city were prevented from going over to the Confederate cause. In May, 1862, Gen. Dix was sent from Baltimore to Fort Monroe, and in the summer of 1863, after the trouble connected with the draft riots, he was transferred to New York, as com- mander of the Department of the East, which place he held until the close of the war. In 1866 he was appointed naval officer of the port of New York, the prelude to another appointment during the same year, that of minister to France. In 1872 he was elected governor of the state of New York as a Republican by a majority of 53,000, and, while holding that office, rendered the country great service in thwarting the proceedings of the infla- tionists in congress, and, with the aid of the legis- lature, strengthening the national administration in its attitude of opposition to them. On a re- nomination, in 1874, he was defeated, in conse- quence ])artly of the reaction against the president under the " third-tei-m " panic, and partly of the studious apathy of prominent Republican politi- cians who desired his defeat. During his lifetime Gen. Dix held other places of importance, being elected a vestryman of Trinity church (1849), and in 1872 comptroller of that corporation, delegate to the convention of the diocese of New Y'ork, and deputy to the general convention of the Episcopal church. In 1853 he became president of the Mis- sissippi and Missouri railway company, and in 1863 became the first president of the Union Pacific rail- road company, an office which he held until 1868, also filling a similar place for a few months in 1872 to the Erie railway company. He married Catharine Morgan, adopted daughter of John J. Morgan, of New York, formerly member of con- gress, and had by her seven children, of whom three survived him. He was a man of very large reading and thorf)ugh culture, spoke several lan- guages^ with fluency, and was distinguished for proficiency in classical studies, and for ability and elegance as an orator. Among his published works are " Sketch of the Resources of the City of New York " (New York, 1827); " Decisions of the Super- intendents of Common Schools " (Albany, 1887); "A Winter in Madeira, and a Summer in Spain and Florence " (New York, 1850; 5th ed., 1858); " Speeches and Occasional Addresses " (2 vols., 1864); '* Dies Irae." translation (printed privately, 1863; also revised ed.. 1875); and " Stabat Mater," translation (printed privately, 1868).--IIis eldest son, Morg'aii, clergyman, b. in New York city, 1 Nov., 1827, received his early education and train- ing in Albany, where he resided till 1842. He was graduated at Columbia in 1848, and at the general Theological seminary of the Episcopal churgh in 1852, was ordained deacon the same year, and priest in 1853. In September, 1855, he was appointed an assistant minister in Trinity parish, New York. In 1859 he was chosen assistant rector of the same parish, and on Dr. Berrian's death became rector, 10 Nov., 1862. Dr. Dix has been indfiatigahle in the labors of his office as rector of the largest parish in America, as well as in the service of the Epis- copal church in general, and was chosen president of the house of deputies at the general conven- tion that was held in Chicago in October, 1886.