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Collection Reference Number GLC02382.050
From Archive Folder Collection of Henry Jackson Hunt 
Title John Gibbon to Henry Jackson Hunt regarding a legal matter
Date 7 November 1883
Author Gibbon, John (1827-1896)  
Recipient Hunt, Henry Jackson  
Document Type Correspondence
Content Description Discusses what he calls a travesty of justice regarding a Court of Inquiry held in the case of Lieutenant Ernest Albert Garlington. Garlington led the Greely Relief Expedition in the Arctic. The expedition failed, and in the process the ship Proteus was destroyed after Garlington sailed into Smith Sound, Newfoundland. Hunt's son was a member of another one of the Greely Relief Expeditions.
Subjects Polar Exploration  Frontiers and Exploration  Law  Military History  Military Law  Maritime  Union General  Disaster  
People Gibbon, John (1827-1896)  Hunt, Henry Jackson (1819-1889)  Garlington, Ernest Albert (1853-1934)  
Place written Fort Laramie, Wyoming
Theme The American Civil War; Law
Sub-collection Papers and Images of the American Civil War
Additional Information Folder information: Henry Jackson Hunt was Chief of the Artillery in the Army of the Potomac. Considered by his contemporaries the greatest artillery tactician and strategist of the war, he was a master of the science of gunnery and rewrote the manual on the organization and the use of artillery in early modern armies: Instruction for field artillery. Prepared by a board of artillery officers, consisting of Captain Wm. H. French...Captain Wm. F. Barry...Captain H.J. Hunt...To which is added The evolutions of batteries, tr. from the French by Brigadier General R. Anderson (New York, D. Van Nostrand, 1864). Hunt was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Samuel Wellington Hunt, a career infantry officer. As a child he accompanied his father in 1827 to the Kansas Territory on an expedition to found Fort Leavenworth. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1839 as second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Artillery. He served in the Mexican War where he was elevated to captain and major. Hunt received attention when in the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861, his four-gun battery covered the retreat of a Union force with an artillery duel. He soon afterword became the chief of artillery in defense of Washington, D.C. As a colonel on the staff of McClellan, he organized and trained the artillery reserve and fought in the Peninsular Campaign. His keen work influenced battles at Malvern Hill, South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. His most famous service occurred at Gettysburg. He served in Virginia through the end of the war. Following the Civil War, Hunt held various military posts. He served as president of the permanent Artillery Board. He also served at Fort Sullivan, Eastport, Maine (1868), Fort Adams, Newport, Rhode Island (1869-1872 definitely, and possibly until 1874), military commander at Charleston, South Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia (1875-1880), commander, Department of the South (1880-1883), and as Governor of the Soldier's Home in Washington D.C. (1883-1889). Hunt was governor of the Soldiers' Home in Washington, D.C. from 1883 until his death. Gibbon, a Civil War general, continued in the military after the war, serving in the Montana Territory and Pacific Northwest. He commanded Fort Laramie in 1883, and the Department of the Platte in 1884. In 1883, Garlington led the Greely Relief Expedition expedition in the Arctic. The expedition failed, and in the process the ship Proteus was destroyed after Garlington sailed into Smith Sound, Newfoundland.
Copyright The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Module Civil War, Reconstruction and the Modern Era: 1860-1945