Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Brisbane, Abbott Hall

BRISBANE, Abbott Hall, military engineer, b. in South Carolina; d. in Summerville, S. C., 28 Sept., 1861. He was graduated at the U. S. military academy in 1825, and appointed second lieutenant of the 3d artillery, serving on topographical duty in the city of Washington, and afterward with the engineer, Bernard, on the South Atlantic coast until the close of the year 1827, when he resigned. He served in the Florida war against the Seminole Indians in 1835-'6 as colonel of South Carolina volunteers, and was engaged in the skirmish of Tomoka, 10 March, 1836. After the war he turned his attention, as engineer, to a projected railroad from Charleston, S. C., to Cincinnati, Ohio, having especially intrusted to him the examination of the mountain-passes through which it was to run. He received the appointment of constructing engineer of the projected road, which place he held from 1836 till 1840. He was also chief engineer of the Ocmulgee and Flint railroad, Ga., in 1840-'4. In 1847-'8 he was superintending engineer of an artesian well for the supply of water to the city of Charleston, and he then accepted the chair of belles-lettres and ethics in the South Carolina military academy, occupying the place from 1848 till 1853, after which he retired to his plantation near Charleston. He was the author of a political romance, "Ralphton, or the Young Carolinian of 1776."