of the “North American Review,” which he conducted nearly eleven years, writing, during this time, about one fourth of the articles in it. In 1848 and 1849 he delivered lectures before the Lowell institute, on the application of metaphysical and ethical science to the evidences of religion. During the latter part of Mr. Bowen's connection with the “North American Review” attention was attracted by his articles on the Hungarian question, of which he did not take the popular side, and on account of these, together with his views on other political subjects, the Harvard overseers failed to confirm his appointment as McLean professor of history, made by the corporation in 1850. (See Carter, Robert.) In the winter of this year he lectured again before the Lowell institute on political economy, and in 1852 on the origin and development of the English and American constitutions. In 1853, on the election of Dr. Walker to the presidency of Harvard, Mr. Bowen was appointed his successor in the Alford professorship of natural religion, moral philosophy, and civil polity, and was this time almost unanimously confirmed by the overseers. Since 1858 he lectured before the Lowell institute on the English metaphysicians and philosophers from Bacon to Sir William Hamilton. Prof. Bowen opposed in his philosophical works the systems of Kant, Fichte, Cousin, Comte, and John Stuart Mill, who has replied to his critic in the third edition of his “Logic.” In political economy he opposed the doctrines of Adam Smith on free-trade, Malthus on population, and Ricardo on rent. He took pains to trace the influence of our form of government and condition of society upon economical questions. Prof. Bowen published “Virgil, with English Notes,” and “Critical Essays on the History and Present Condition of Speculative Philosophy” (Boston, 1842); “Lowell Institute Lectures” (1849; revised ed., 1855); an abridged edition of Dugald Stewart's “Philosophy of the Human Mind” (1854); “Documents of the Constitution of England and America, from Magna Charta to the Federal Constitution of 1789” (Cambridge, 1854); the lives of Steuben, Otis, and Benjamin Lincoln, in Sparks's “American Biography”; “Principles of Political Economy, applied to the Condition, Resources, and Institutions of the American People” (Boston, 1856); a revised edition of Reeve's translation of De Tocqueville's “Democracy in America” (2 vols., Cambridge, 1862); a “Treatise on Logic” (1864); “American Political Economy,” with remarks on the finances since the beginning of the civil war (New York, 1870); “Modern Philosophy, from Descartes to Schopenhauer and Hartmann” (1877); “Gleanings from a Literary Life, 1838-1880” (1880); and “A Layman's Study of the English Bible, considered in its Literary and Secular Aspect” (1886).
BOWEN, George Thomas, chemist, b. in Providence, R. I., 19 March, 1803; d. in Nashville,
Tenn., 25 Oct., 1828. He was graduated at Yale
in 1822, studied medicine in Philadelphia, and in
1825 was elected professor of chemistry in the
University of Nashville, where he continued until his
death. While an undergraduate in college, he
showed such interest in chemistry that he was
permitted to devote all the time he could spare from
his other studies to laboratory work under Prof.
Silliman. The results of his investigations were
published in 1822 under the titles “On the Electromagnetic Effects of Hare's Calorimeter” and “On a Mode of Preserving in a Permanent Form the
Coloring-Matter of Purple Cabbage as a Test for
Acids and Alkalies.” Analyses and descriptions of
several minerals prepared by him date from this
time. In Philadelphia he was a devoted follower
of the Academy of Natural Sciences, and contributed
to its memoirs and discussions.
BOWEN, James, soldier, b. in New York city in 1808: d. in Hastings-on-Hudson, N. Y., 29 Sept.,
1886. His father, a successful merchant, left him an ample fortune. He was the first president of the Erie railway, and held that office for several years. He was a member of the legislature in 1848 and 1849, and president of the first board of
police commissioners under the law of 1855, establishing the present metropolitan police force. At
the beginning of the civil war he raised six or seven
regiments, which were formed into a brigade, and
took command of them, receiving his commission
as brigadier-general of volunteers, 11 Oct., 1862.
After Gen. Butler had left New Orleans, Gen.
Bowen went there, and served as provost-marshal
general of the department of the gulf. He resigned
on 27 July, 1864, and on 13 March, 1865, was brevetted major-general of volunteers. His last public
office was that of commissioner of charities, to
which he was appointed by Mayor Havemeyer, and
continued to fill most acceptably for many years.
Gen. Bowen was a member of the union club, and
of the Kent club, where he was an associate of Moses
H. Grinnell, Richard M. Blatchford, James Watson
Webb, and Thurlow Weed, and was valued for his
sound views on literature. These gentlemen were
all intimate friends of Daniel Webster. It is related
that while Mr. Webster was secretary of state, Gen.
Bowen, at one of his dinner-parties, said: 'I want you to do me a favor, Mr. Webster," to which Webster replied, "To the half of my kingdom." Gen. Bowen was also an intimate friend of William H. Seward, and a pall-bearer at his funeral.
BOWEN, John S., soldier, b. in Georgia in 1829; d. in Raymond, Miss., 13 July, 1863. He
was graduated at West Point in 1853, and became
lieutenant of mounted rifles, serving at the Carlisle, Pa., cavalry school, and on the frontier. On 1 May, 1856, he resigned and became an architect in Savannah, Ga., where he was also lieutenant-colonel of state militia. He removed his office to St. Louis, Mo., in 1857, where he was captain in the Missouri militia from 1859 till 1861. He was adjutant to Gen. Frost during the expedition to the border in search of Montgomery, and, when the civil war began, commanded the second regiment
of Frost's brigade. He was acting chief of staff to Gen. Frost when Camp Jackson was captured by Gen. Lyon, and afterward, disregarding his parole, raised at Memphis the 1st Missouri infantry. He was severely wounded at the battle of Shiloh,
where he commanded a brigade in Breckinridge's corps, and stubbornly resisted Grant's advance near Port Gibson in May, 1863. He was in all the battles around Vicksburg, and took a prominent part in the negotiations for its surrender, and his
death is said to have been hastened by mortification at that event.
BOWEN, Nathaniel, P. E. bishop, b. in Boston, Mass., 29 June, 1779; d. in Charleston, S. C., 25 Aug., 1839. His father removed to South Carolina in 1787, and died there very soon afterward. The boy's education was chiefly cared for by Rev. Dr. R. Smith (afterward bishop of South Carolina). He was graduated at Charleston in 1794, and served some time as a tutor in the college, and then went north for preparation for the ministry. He studied under Rev. Dr. Parker, in Boston (afterward bishop of the eastern diocese), and was ordained deacon in June, 1800, priest by Bishop Bass in October, 1802, and became assistant minister in St. Michael's
