Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 01.djvu/243

BATCHELDER, Richard N., soldier, was born at Meredith. N.H., July 27, 1832. He was appointed regimental quartermaster of the 1st N.H. regiment, April 30, 1861. He was promoted captain and assistant quartermaster, and assigned to duty as chief quartermaster of the corps of observation in August, 1861; chief quartermaster second division, second corps, army of the Potomac, March, 1862; lieutenant-colonel and chief quartermaster, second corps, army of the Potomac, January, 1863; acting chief quartermaster, army of the Potomac, June, 1864; colonel and chief quartermaster, army of the Potomac, August, 1864. Here he had charge of the immense baggage trains of that great force, comprising some five thousand wagons and thirty thousand horses and mules, on the campaign from the Rapidan to the James. He was brevetted major, lieutenant-colonel and brigadier-general of volunteers, and major, lieutenant-colonel and colonel. United States army, for faithful and meritorious service during the war. He was appointed captain and assistant quartermaster in the regular service in February, 1865, and from that date until 1889 he served as assistant and chief quartermaster at various depots, posts and departments. He received seven brevets for faithful and meritorious services during the war, and medals of honor were awarded him by Congress under the act of July 12, 1862, and under that of March 3, 1863, for "such officers, non-commissioned officers and privates as have most distinguished or who may hereafter most distinguish themselves in action." He was brevetted "for most distinguished gallantry in action against Mosby's guerrillas, between Catlett's and Fairfax stations, Va., Oct. 13-15, 1863, while serving as lieutenant-colonel and quartermaster of volunteers, chief quartermaster of the second army corps." On July 10, 1890, he was appointed quartermaster-general of the army by President Harrison. During his six years of service in that capacity he handled forty-three millions of dollars. He was retired from active service July 27, 1896. He died at Washington, D.C., Jan. 4, 1901.

BATCHELDER, Samuel, manufacturer, was born at Jaffrey. N.H., June 8, 1784. In 1808 he entered the cotton manufacturing business in Ipswich, N.H., and later transferred his interests to Lowell, Mass. He thoroughly understood both the practical and theoretical sides of his business, and became very influential among manufacturing men and elsewhere. He was president of five large manufacturing establishments at one time, with an aggregate capital of five million dollars. Aside from making a number of useful inventions and improvements in machinery, he was the author of "Responsibilities of the North in Relation to Slavery," published in 1856, and wrote, when he was nearly eighty years of age, "History of the Progress of Cotton Manufactures in the United States." He died at Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 5, 1879.

BATCHELOR, Joseph B., lawyer, was born in Halifax county, N.C., in 1825. He was graduated at the University of North Carolina in 1845, and two years later received a license to practise law. In 1855 he was appointed to the office of attorney-general of North Carolina, which office he held for two years. He was a leading member of the North Carolina legislature of 1860 that voted for the call of the convention which passed the ordinance of secession. He gave largely of his ample means for the vigorous prosecution of the war. At the close of the war he engaged in the practice of his profession at Raleigh, N.C. In 1879 Mr. Batchelor began legal proceedings by which about $700,000 were saved to the state of its interest in the North Carolina railroad. Soon after the adoption of the "Code of Civil Procedure" he secured the passage of the act of the legislature that is styled "Batchelor's Stay Law," which was a necessity to prevent the utter ruin of the agricultural and laboring classes of the state after the construction given by the courts to the "Code of Civil Procedure." He was also largely influential in securing the establishment of the orphan asylum at Oxford. In 1891 the University of North Carolina conferred on him, the honorary degree of LL.D.

BATE, William Bremage, senator, was born at Castilian Springs, Tenn., Oct. 7, 1826. He was educated at an academy and became clerk on a steamboat. At the breaking out of the Mexican war he volunteered as a private, serving thus until its close, when, returning to his native state, he was elected to the lower house of the Tennessee legislature. In 1852 he was graduated from the Lebanon law school, going thence to Gallatin, where he began to practise law. From 1854 to 1860 he acted as attorney-general for the Nashville district, during which time he declined a nomination as representative in Congress. In 1860 he was a Democratic presidential elector. The following year he joined the Confederate army as a private, and was promoted through the ranks of captain, colonel, and brigadier-general to that of major-general, serving throughout the war. At its close he returned to Tennessee and again began to practise law. In 1868 he was a delegate to the Democratic national convention, and he served for twelve years on the national Democratic executive committee for Tennessee. In 1876 he was a Democratic elector for the state at large, and was elected governor of Tennessee in 1882 and 1884. He was elected United States senator in 1887, to which office he was re-elected in 1893, and in 1899.