San Diego County
Biographies
GENERAL SYLVANUS CADWALLADER
springs from a line of Welsh ancestry dating back for 200 years on American soil. Some of the names, in each generation, have been distinguished in the civil and military history of the country, from its first settlement to the present time. His father, Dr. Joseph Cadwaller [sic], was born in Grayson County, Virginia, in 1801; moved to southern Ohio in 1818; studied medicine under Dr. Samuel P. and Joseph Anthony, eminent physicians and surgeons of Clinton and Highland counties, Ohio; took his degree of M.D. at Cincinnati, Ohio; practiced medicine a year at Portland, Indiana, and moved to Marion, afterward the county seat of Grant County, Indiana, and followed his profession there until his death in 1833. Dr. Cadwallader was the first regular physician who settled there; was the first Postmaster of Marion when the post-route was established from Richmond to Logansport; rode on horseback to Indianapolis to meet the assembled Legislature, and had Marion established as the county seat; and was an active, public-spirited man who contributed largely in developing what was then a trackless wilderness. Dr. Cadwallader married Catharine Cox, who was born at Cox's Mills, Randolph County, North Carolina, in 1802.
Sylvanus Cadwallader, the subject of this sketch, was born near New Vienna, Clinton County, Ohio, November 17, 1825. His father and mother both died the first week in December, 1833. His home was thereafter with his maternal grandparents till 1840. He received a common-school education near the place of his birth, and took a partial academic course at South Salem, Ross County, Ohio. He was first married at La Porte, Indiana, March 16, 1851, to Katherine Rosamond Paul, born at Danville, Vermont, and lived mainly at Walnut Hills, Ohio, till after her death, in 1856. During part of his residence there he was Postmaster of the suburb. His second marriage, in October, 1867, was to Mary Isabella Paul, still living. His only surviving child is a son by the second marriage, at present professor of mathematics in the San Diego College of Letters, and named Rawlins, after General John A. Rawlins, General Grant's first Adjutant General, Chief of Staff and Secretary of War.
General Cadwallader moved to Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the summer of 1859, and published the Kenosha Democrat and the Racine Press, until March, 1862. He was city editor of the Milwaukee News for about six months after leaving Racine, and was then employed by Messrs. Story & Worden, owners of the Chicago Times, to go to General Grant's headquarters, then at Jackson, Tennessee, and procure, if possible, the release of Mr. Isham (a former correspondent of the Times and brother-in-law of Mr. Story), from the Alton military prison, where he had been confined several months by General Grant for sending "contraband" news from the army. He was also an accredited correspondent of the Times. He secured Mr. Isham's release as soon as he presented the case, and in doing so made the favorable acquaintance of General Grant and staff and was invited to remain at headquarters and witness the pending operations against Holly Springs, Mississippi.
He accompanied the army on what is known as the Tallahatchie expedition, in November and December, 1862; returned to Memphis about January 1, 1863; proceeded down the Mississippi river to Young's Point in company with Captain Prime and Lieutenant (afterward the distinguished General of Cavalry) J. H. Wilson, engineers on the staff, to inspect the canal or " cut-off" in front of Vicksburg, and thereafter remained at headquarters by the special invitation of General Grant, and was in constant and daily intercourse with him, except when absent on short leave, from Vicksburg to Appomattox, from Appomattox to Raleigh, and for two years in Washington city after the close of the war. He was the only war correspondent ever allowed to remain at General Grant's headquarters.
He witnessed the battle of Raymond, May 12; the battle of Jackson, May 14; the battle of Champion's Hill, May 16; the fighting at Big Black, May 17; the investiture of Vicksburg. May 18, and all the subsequent siege operations ending in the memorable surrender of that world-renowned stronghold, July 4, 1863.
Some time previous to this he had been employed by Frederick Hudson, managing editor of the New York Herald, to write private letters to James Gordon Bennett, Sr., to be used only in shaping, governing and outlining the policy of that paper, concerning military commanders and military operations in the southwest. These letters were an important factor in securing for General Grant the steadfast support of that influential journal-- a support which never relaxed for a single day until Grant became President. His private correspondence ended in his leaving the Times and devoting himself exclusively to the Herald. He gave the name of "Champion's Hill" to the battle fought May 16, because it was on a long timbered ridge on Mr. Champion's plantation. His dispatches were published all over the North, and the name became so fixed in the public mind that General Grant's official name for it—" Baker's Creek"—is scarcely known outside the records of the war department.
At a critical period in General Grant's career during the siege of Vicksburg, General Cadwallader (then holding no commission) rendered him signal military and personal service of a nature which cannot properly be stated here, but the obligation was never forgotten by General Grant and his intimate friends. For this service he was tendered a place on the staff with the rank of Captain, but could not accept it. Until this time his standing at headquarters had only been that of a favored war correspondent, but thereafter he was accorded extraordinary privileges, which continued until the Union armies were disbanded. General John A. Rawlins, Chief of Staff, Colonel William L. Duff, Chief of Artillery, and General Cadwallader messed together most of the time until they arrived at City Point, in June, 1864. At the latter place he kept open house on New York Herald account and ran a private mess of his own.
Speaking of the service rendered General Grant during the siege of Vicksburg, one of the most distinguished Generals on his staff said in a recent letter to General Cadwallader: "You did an excellent day's work, not only for General Grant, but for the country. It gives me great pleasure to add, that to my personal knowledge you were always held by both Grant and Rawlins in the highest personal and official esteem. You were regarded personally as a member of the staff, as you were in fact and deed. I am sure no secrets were ever concealed from you; and in view of your relations with the press, I am confident no higher compliment could have been paid you, then or now."
General Cadwallader rode with the staff; messed with them; had his tents pitched and struck, as for a staff officer; was introduced as a staff officer; often performed important and confidential staff duty; and has in his possession General Grant's written orders, to be used wherever and whenever necessary, "directing all guards and all picket-guards, in all the armies of the United States, to pass him at any hour of the day or night, with horses or vehicles; ordering all quartermasters of transportation to furnish him transportation on demand, for himself, servants and horses; and ordering all commissaries of subsistence to furnish him subsistence on demand for himself, horses and servants." In addition to this he has some unused passes, properly written and signed by order of General Grant, having blank spaces in which to write names, by which (when away from headquarters and unknown) he could send whomsoever he pleased over all the military lines of transportation within General Grant's command.
He was offered many military appointments and commissions, ranging from Second Lieutenant, Second Infantry, United States Army, to a full Colonelcy on General Hancock's staff; but as his pay already exceeded that of a Brigadier General, and his opportunities for serving his country were quite as good in the newspaper field as in the military service, he declined them all, and was never mustered under any commission. As correspondent-in-chief of the New York Herald, he had from twenty to forty trained men subject to his instant and absolute orders, and was responsible to the New York Herald for all the war news east of the Alleghany mountains.
After reaching City Point there were many reasons, public and private, why General Grant was never allowed to leave his headquarters without some one with him, whose authority to act for him temporarily would be recognized in case of accidents or emergencies. Rawlins, Bowers and Cadwallader came to be the only members of General Grant's first military family in the West, who still remained with him. Rawlins, as chief of staff, was compelled to remain in charge of the army in Grant's absence. The result was that Bowers or Cadwallader almost invariably accompanied him (no matter who else might be along) on all trips to Fortress Monroe, Baltimore, Washington city or elsewhere. General Cadwallader was in the room when General Lee surrendered, and was introduced to him among such of the regular staff as were present, by General Grant. He also accompanied General Grant to North Carolina, and witnessed the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston's army.
He saw the three principal mine explosions of the war—the Fort Hill mine at Vicksburg; the Burnside mine at Petersburg; and the Dutch Gap mine on James River. He was captured twice, but escaped in less than twenty-four hours each time, and before he could be committed to a rebel prison. His first capture was by a detachment of Van Dorn's cavalry between Collierville and Germantown, Tennessee, immediately after the Holly Springs affair. His second capture was by a company of the Seventh Virginia Cavalry, the Saturday night after the battle of the Wilderness. The dispatches found upon him were of such importance that the Richmond newspapers consoled themselves for the loss of a battle by publishing them in full, to show, as they expressed it, " how Lee was plowing the Yankees under" on the Rapidan. He was in thirty-four battles and engagements of varying magnitude; an orderly was killed at his heels in front of Fort Hill, Vicksburg; one horse was disabled at Cold Harbor, and another killed by a shell at Hatcher's Run; and he escaped from all with a slight flesh wound in the knee from a mini ball while riding across the field under fire, in front of Petersburg, April 2, 1865.
On his return to Washington city at the end of the war, he was chief of the New York Herald bureau till October, 1866. General Rawlins and himself brought their families to the capital; rented a large house in Georgetown, and lived together as one family, sharing the expense jointly. He was one of the editors and proprietors of the Milwaukee Daily News, and secretary of the Milwaukee News Company from January 1, 1867 to June 1, 1874; was Assistant Secretary of the State of Wisconsin from January 1, 1874 to January 1, 1878; was Quartermaster General of the State of Wisconsin, with the rank of Brigadier General, from January 1, 1874 to January 1, 1876; was financial agent for Drury College, Springfield, Missouri, from 1879 to 1883 inclusive; was on the editorial staff of the Globe-Democrat, St. Louis, Missouri, till June,1884; was superintendent of the Springfield Water Company, Missouri, till January, 1887; arrived in San Diego March 14, 1887; was secretary of the Oceanside Brick and Lumber Company, and of the San Diego Bituminous Paving Company, from April 1, 1887, to September 1, 1889.
By birth and parentage General Cadwallader belonged to the Society of Friends, commonly called Quakers, but has of late years been a member of the First Presbyterian Church, Madison, Wisconsin; Summit Presbyterian Church, Barton County, Missouri; the First and Second Presbyterian Churches, Springfield, Missouri; and the First Presbyterian Church, San Diego, California; and was ruling elder in all of these except the First Church of Springfield; was Commissioner from Ozark Presbytery to the General Assembly in 1882, and from Los Angeles Presbytery in 1890; was made a Mason in Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1849; was junior and senior warden of Science Lodge, No. 50, F. & A. M., Sandusky, Ohio; was twice Master of Cynthia Lodge, No. 155, F. & A. M., Cincinnati, Ohio; was ex-officio, a member of the Grand Lodge of Ohio for a number of years, ending with 1859; has been dubbed a Knight Templar and Knight of Malta; and in politics is classed as an independent Democrat, or free-trade Republican.
SOURCE: An Illustrated History of Southern California: Embracing the Counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Peninsula of Lower California… Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890. p.- 320-323
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler