Theodore Winthrop

John Brent, by Theodore Winthrop

This work is a work of fiction. The plot of the novel takes place in the United States in the middle of the 19th century. The scenes range from gold-rush era California, across the American West, and across the Atlantic to London. The work was published posthumously in 1865................... Major Theodore Woolsey Winthrop (September 22, 1828 - June 10, 1861) was a writer, lawyer, and world traveller. He was one of the first Union officers killed in the American Civil War. Biography: Winthrop was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He was descended through his father from Governor John Winthrop and through his mother from George (Joris) Woolsey, one of the earliest settlers of New Amsterdam, Thomas Cornell (settler) and Jonathan Edwards. He graduated in 1848 from Yale University, where his uncle Theodore Dwight Woolsey was President and he was a member of the Phi Chapter of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity, he travelled for a year in Great Britain and Europe and then through the United States. After contributing to periodicals, short sketches, and stories, which attracted little attention, Winthrop enlisted in the 7th Regiment, New York State Militia, an early volunteer unit of the Federal Army that answered President Abraham Lincoln's call for troops in 1861. He wrote a popular essay about the experience titled "Our March to Washington." He was appointed Major and soon became an aide-de-camp to Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, commander of the Department of Virginia headquartered at Fort Monroe. Battle of Big Bethel: At the Battle of Big Bethel on June 10, 1861, he volunteered for General Ebenezer W. Peirce's staff and drew up a crude plan of battle. After a Federal attack to the enemy right flank was foiled, Winthrop led an ill-fated assault on the Confederate left held by four companies of the 1st Regiment North Carolina Infantry, under the command of Colonel (later Lieutenant General) Daniel Harvey Hill. In the heat of battle, Major Winthrop leapt onto the trunk of a fallen tree and reportedly yelled, "One more charge boys, and the day is ours." Soon thereafter, he was killed by a musket ball to the heart and became the first casualty of rank for the Northern side in what history regards as the first pitched land battle of the Civil War. Ironically, ardent abolitionist Winthrop may have been shot by the African-American slave of a Confederate officer in the 1st North Carolina Infantry. (Three different soldiers, as well as this slave, referred to in the records only as "Sam," claimed to have killed him.).....................