Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/931

Civil War; was aide-de-camp to the Governor of Rhode Island; won the rank of colonel in 1855; graduated M.A. at Brown University in 1858, and LL.B. at the Albany Law School in 1859; and studied civil and international law in Europe. He was engaged actively in the presidential campaign of 1856; organised important political movements in that of 1860; accepted in November of that year the office of Adjutant-General of the State of New York, and won the rank of brigadier-general at the age of twenty-three. He was chairman of the Government Commission which welcomed President Lincoln at Buffalo, and escorted him to the capital (Feb., 1861); chairman, two months later, of the committee of three to draft a bill appropriating 3,000,000 dollars for the purchase of arms and equipments, and received the official thanks of the War Department for his energy, ability, and zeal in the organisation and equipment of troops during the war. In 1868 he took a leading part in the election of General Grant, who appointed him Consul-General of the United States for France and Algeria, to reside at Paris, a newly-created post, which he was called upon to organise in all its varied details. General Read likewise acted as Consul-General of Germany during the Franco-German War, and afterwards, for nearly two years, directed all the consular affairs of that empire, including the protection of German subjects and interests during the first and second sieges of Paris (1870-71). Both sides acknowledged that his consenting to continue to act as Consul-General with the thirty-five consuls and consular agents under him, prevented the possibility of a renewal of the conflict between the two countries by rendering unnecessary the presence in France of German consular officials at a time when the mind of the French people was highly excited against all Germans. At this period the German ambassador, in a letter to General Read, said, "I cannot omit to express to you once more the sentiments of gratitude with which I am inspired by the persevering solicitude which you have never ceased to manifest in procuring for my compatriots the protection of the laws." Shut up in Paris during the two sieges, he employed himself actively in relieving the distress of the population. For these services he received the commendation of the president of the United States in his annual message to Congress, the repeated thanks both of the French and of the German governments, and the official and personal thanks and compliments of Prince Bismarck. In 1872 he was invited by General deCissey, French Minister of War, to form and preside over a commission to examine into the expediency of extending the study of the English language in the French army, and for his successful labours in this direction he again received the thanks of the French Government. In recognition of his various distinguished services, he was promoted, in Nov., 1873, to be the United States Minister resident in Greece. Since then he has received the thanks of his Government for his ability and energy in securing the release of the American ship Armenia, and for his success in obtaining from the Greek Government a revocation of the order prohibiting the sale and circulation of the Bible in Greece; he also received the thanks of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Southern Presbyterian Church, and of the British and American Foreign Bible Societies for the latter important service. During the great financial crisis in America in 1876-7, while studying the commercial situation, he became possessed of secret and valuable information from Russia and England, which convinced him that America could