but with these exceptions his life was passed in comparative retirement.—His brother, Thomas, governor of North Carolina, b. in Warrenton, Warren co., N. C, in 1810; d. in Raleigh, 21 Jan., 1872. He was educated at the military academy at Middletown, Conn., studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1831, and began practice at Jackson, N. C. He was chosen to the state legislature in 1842, and in 1854 was elected governor of North Carolina, holding that office until 1858. He was elected U. S. senator in 1859, but withdrew in 1861 after the secession of his state. Jefferson Davis made him attorney-general in his cabinet, 22 Feb., 1801, and he acted in that capacity two years. Having lost all his means by the war, Gov. Bragg resumed the practice of his profession and also re-entered political life, becoming chairman of the state democratic committee. He was active in the impeachment proceedings against Gov. Holden.
BRAGG, Edward Stuyvesant, soldier, b. in Unadilla, N. Y., 20 Feb., 1827. He studied three
years at Geneva, now Hobart. college, left at the end of the junior year, and studied law in the office of Judge Noble, in Unadilla. He was admitted to the bar in 1848, and soon after removed to Fond du Lac, Wis. In 1854 he was elected district attorney for Fond du Lac co., and served two years.
He was a Douglas democrat, and a delegate to the
Charleston convention in 1860. At the beginning
of the civil war he entered the military service of
the United States as captain, 5 May, 1861, and
held all the intermediate grades to and including
that of brigadier-general, with which rank he was
mustered out, 8 Oct., 1865. He participated in all
the campaigns of the army of the Potomac except
the Peninsular, Gettysburg, and Five Forks. In
1866 he was a delegate to the Philadelphia union
convention. In 1867 he was elected to the state
senate, and served one term. In 1868 he was a
delegate to the soldiers' and sailors' convention in
New York, which nominated Horatio Seymour for
president. In 1872 he was a delegate to the national democratic convention in Baltimore, which nominated Horace Greeley for president. He was elected to congress for three successive terms, beginning with the 45th congress. He was a delegate to the democratic national convention in 1884, and, as chairman of his delegation, seconded the nomination of Grover Cleveland for the presidency. The same year he was elected to the 49th congress. During his congressional career he was regarded as one of the most dangerous antagonists in debate in the whole house. Small of stature and belligerent in bearing, he was perpetually in the thick of the fight, and had few equals in his power of acrimonious retort and invective. Although he was intensely a democrat in a partisan sense, he never could be counted upon to vote steadily with his party.
BRAINARD, David Legg, explorer, b. in Norway, Herkimer co., N. Y.. 21 Dec, 1856. He attended a district school until his eleventh year, when his father's family removed to Freetown, where he was sent to the state normal school. On 18 Sept., 1876, he enlisted in the regular army, and was assigned to the 2d cavalry, then stationed at Fort
Ellis, Montana. He participated in the Indian campaigns under Gen. Miles, and was wounded in the face in action with the Sioux at Muddy Creek, Montana, 7 May, 1877. In the following August he was one of the four men selected to act as escort to Gen. Sherman and party in their tour through the National park. In July, 1879, he was promoted sergeant, and in May, 1880, recommended for detail on the Howgate polar expedition; but, the enterprise having been abandoned, he returned to his regiment at Fort Assiniboine. Early in the spring of the following year he was again ordered to Washington and made first sergeant (chief of the enlisted men) of the Lady Franklin bay expedition under Lieut. Greely, which place he held during three years of Arctic service, being in command of many important boat and sledge expeditions. He was associated
with Lieut. Lockwood in all the important geographical work, and was one of the three who, on 15 May, 1882, attained the highest northern point on the globe ever reached by man. taking observations in lat. 83° 24½', long. 40° 46½' W. While the
party were in camp at Cape Sabine, undergoing
terrible privations. Sergeant Brainard fished for
shrimps, and prolonged the lives of the party for
about seventy days. Brainard received from the
Royal geographical society of Great Britain a testimonial consisting of an elegant gold watch, with
accompanying diploma; and the U. S. government
attached him to the signal service dejiartment,
and in October, 1886, commissioned him 2d lieutenant of cavalry.
BRAINARD, Daniel, surgeon, b. in Whitesborough, Oneida co., N. Y., 15 May, 1812; d. in
Chicago, Ill., 10 Oct., 1866. He received an academic education, and studied medicine, first at Fairfield medical college and afterward at Jefferson medical college, where he was graduated in the spring of 1834. He delivered a course of lectures on anatomy and physiology at Oneida institute in 1836, studied in Europe in 1839-'41, and in 1842 became professor of anatomy in the university of St. Louis. He was the founder of Rush medical college, Chicago, and occupied its chair of surgery
from 1843 till his death. Under Presidents Pierce and Buchanan he was surgeon of the marine hospital, Chicago. He was a corresponding member of the societies of surgery of Paris and Geneva, and published a work on rattlesnake bites; "Ununited Fractures and Deformities," the American medical association prize essay for 1854; and many articles in the " Chicago Medical Journal." At the time of his death he had been for several years engaged on an extensive surgical work, which remains unfinished. Dr. Brainard was one of the most prominent surgeons of the northwest. His reputation rests largely on his advocacy of subcutaneous perforation of ununited bones for the cure of false joint, and the treatment of poisoned wounds by means of alterative injections.
BRAINARD, John Gardiner Calluns, poet, b. in New London, Conn., 21 Oct., 1796; d. there, 26 Sept., 1828. He was graduated at Yale in 1815, and studied law, but, after practising a short time at Middletown, Conn., went to Hartford, and took charge there, in 1822, of the "Connecticut Mirror." He paid little attention to politics, but devoted himself to the literary part of the paper, publishing in it many poems, mostly ballads, which soon brought him into notice. He had previously written a few pieces for a New Haven paper called the "Microscope." Brainard had always been delicate, and in 1827 consumption forced him to give up his editorship and retire to the east end of Long Island, where he remained until he returned to his father's house in New London, to die. Although he suffered much, he continued to write until just before his death. He published a collection of his poems (New York, 1825); and a second edition enlarged, entitled "Literary Remains," with a sketch of the author, by John G. Whittier, his successor as editor of the "Mirror," was published after Brainard's death (1832; 3d ed., with
