Theodore Winthrop
Theodore Winthrop | |
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Born | September 22, 1828 New Haven, Connecticut |
Died | June 10, 1861 | (aged 32)
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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, a descendant of several prominent Colonial families. He was descended through his father from Governor John Winthrop, and through his mother from theologian Jonathan Edwards and early settlers George (Joris) Woolsey and Thomas Cornell.[1]
He graduated in 1848 from
Battle of Big Bethel
At the
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
Author
Winthrop's novels, for which he had failed to find a publisher during his lifetime, appeared posthumously. They include John Brent, founded on his experiences in the far West, and Edwin Brothertoft, a story of the American Revolution. Cecil Dreeme, his most important work, was a semi-autobiographical novel dealing with social mores and gender roles set at New York University, where Winthrop had once been a lodger. Other works include The Canoe and the Saddle and Life in the Open Air. His sister, Laura Winthrop Johnson, assembled a collection of his poems and prose organized by the time period of his life Life and Poems of Theodore Winthrop.
Works published during Winthrop's lifetime include a pamphlet accompanying the painting The Heart of the Andes by his friend Frederic Edwin Church, distributed in 1859. After Winthrop's death in 1861, the Atlantic Monthly published sketches of the military campaigns in Virginia based on his own experiences.[2]
See also
References
- ^ Cornell, Thomas Clapp (1890). Adam and Anne Mott: Their Ancestors and Their Descendants. A.V. Haight. pp. 359–361. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
- ^ a b Tucker, Nick. "Theodore Winthrop papers, 1844–1860". New York Public Library. Retrieved June 26, 2019.
- ^ Joshua E. Kastenberg, The Blackstone of Military Law: Colonel William Winthrop (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009), 77-79
External links
- NYU and the Village: Theodore Winthrop
- Life and Poems of Theodore Winthrop
- Works by Theodore Winthrop at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Theodore Winthrop at Internet Archive
- Works by Theodore Winthrop at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.