to join the Confederate army. He soon received a commission MS brigadier-general, and on ." July was assigned to the command of the Department of Mexin i, and intrusted with the task of driving therefrom tin- National forces. He raised a brigade in northwestern Texas, left Fort Bliss in January, isi;-,', to effect the conquest of New Mexico, ap- peared before Fort Craig on 16 Feb., and on 21 I'Vh. I'ouirht with Col. Edward R. S. Canby the en- iranvmrnt of Valverde, which resulted in the with- drawal of tin- National troops. He occupied Al- buquerque and Santa Fe, but in April was com- pelled to evacuate the territory. Subsequently lie served with his brigade under Gen. Richard Taylor and Gen. E. Kirby Smith. In December, 1869, he entered the service of the khedive of Egypt with the rank of brigadier-general, and was assigned to the duty of constructing sea-coast and river de- fences. "At the termination of his five years' con- tract he returned, with broken health, to the United States. He was the inventor of a tent for troops modelled after the wigwams of the Sioux and Co- manche Indians. lie obtained letters-patent, and the U. S. government, while he was in its service, contracted for the use of the tent. At the close of the civil war the U. S. officials refused to carry out the terms of the contract, and after his death the claim was brought before congress in the inter- r-t "C his family. He occasionally lectured on the condition of the Egyptian fellaheen.
SIBLEY, John Langdon, librarian, b. in
Union, Me.. 29 Dec., 1804; d. in Cambridge. Mass..
13 Dec., 1885. He was graduated at Harvard in
1825, and entered the divinity-school. While he
was in college much of his time was spent in work-
ing in the library, and he was assistant librarian
in the divinity-school in 1825-'6. In 1829 he was
ordained pastor of the first church in Stow. Mass..
where he remained four years. From is:;:; till
1841 he was engaged in literary work in Cambridge,
and during part, of this period he was editor and
proprietor of the " American Magazine of Useful
and Entertaining Knowledge." When Gore hall,
the present library building of Harvard, was opened
in 1841, Mr. Sibley was appointed assistant libra-
rian under Dr. Th'addeus William Harris. On the
latter's death in 1856, Mr. Sibley was appointed
librarian, which post he held for twenty-one years,
until 1877, when, owing to his age and the failure
of his sight, he was retired from active work, and
made librarian emeritus. Owing to his persistent
requests for all kinds of printed matter, and his
earnest appeals for pecuniary aid, the number of
volumes increased from 41,000 in 1841 to 164,000
volumes, and almost as many pamphlets, in 1877,
and its permanent fund from $5,000 to f 170,000 in
the same period. From 1839 till his retirement he
was the editor of the triennial and quinquennial
catalogues. He first inserted obituary dates in the
triennial of 1845, and from 1849 solicited and lire-
served biographical notes of the graduates. After
1800 he inserted in the triennials his " Appeal to
Graduates and Others " for biographical sketches,
giving a list of questions for guidance in their
preparation. From 1850 till 1870 he also edited
the annual catalogues. He was indefatigable in
his quest for biographical information and exact
dates, and had the reverence of a Chinaman for
sc-raps of paper, utilizing odds and ends, especially
the blank insides of envelopes, upon which many
of his most valuable memoranda were made. These
notes, accumulated during more than half a cen-
tury, together with the letters that he received
during about forty years, were chronologically
arranged and bound, and his very large collection
of newspaper-cuttings relating to graduates was
carefully indexed anil arranged in scrap-books.
For thirty-seven years he led the singing of the
"Nth Psalm at the commencement dinner. Bow-
doin conferred upon him the honorary degree of
A. M. in 1856. He was a fellow of the American
academy of arts and sciences, and from 1846 an
active member of the Massachusetts historical so-
ciety, and he was also a member of other historical
societies. In remembrance of the aid that he had
received as a student from the charity fund of
Phillips Exeter academy, he began in 1862 a series
of gifts to that institution, which amounted at the
time of his death to more than $39.000. the income
from which is to be used for the support of meri-
torious and needy students. He was not known as
the donor until the dedication of the new academy
building in 1872. He published "Index to the
Writings of George Washington " (Boston, 1837) ;
"History of the Town of Union, Me." (1851):
" Index to the Works of John Adams " (1853) ; and
" Notices of the Triennial and Annual Catalogues
of Harvard University, with a Reprint of the
Catalogues of 1674, 1682, and 1700 " (1865). His
last and greatest work, upon which he had spent
nearly forty years of constant research and unre-
mitting labor, is " Biographical Sketches of Gradu-
ates of Harvard University," three volumes of
which have been published (1873-'85). In the
preface to his third volume, written nine months
before his death, he says : " I have passed my
eightieth birthday, and have expended such work-
ing power as remained to me in the volume now
given to the public. I can do no more. But thr
work will be continued by younger hands, into
which will pass a large mass of materials the ac-
cumulated collections of more than half a century."
SIBLEY, Mark Hopkins, jurist, b. in Great Harrington, Mass., in 1796 ; d. in Canandaigua, N. Y., 8 Sept.. 1852, received a classical education, removed to Canandaigua in 1814, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and gained a high reputation as an advocate. He was a member of the New York legislature in 1834'5, and was elected as a Whig to congress, serving from 4 Sept., ls.">7, till 3 March, 1839. At the close of his term he was elected a state senator, and in 1846 became county judge. He was a member of a charming social circle in Canandaigua. including Francis and Gideon Granger, John Greig, and William Wood. His cousin, Hiram, financier, b. in North Adams, Mass., 6 Feb., 1807; d. in Rochester, N. Y.. 12 July, 1888, received a common-school education. He practised the shoemaker's trade without preparatory training, and, emigrating to western New York at the age of sixteen, worked as a journeyman machinist in a manufactory of carding-machines in Lima, and mastered three other trades before he was twenty-one years old. He carried on the wool-carding business at Sparta and Mount Morris, next established a foundry and machine-shop at Mendon, and in 1843 removed to Rochester, on being elected sheriff of Monroe county. He was instrumental in obtaining from congress an appropriation in aid of Samuel F. B. Morse's experiments, and interested himself in telegraphy from the beginning. When the invention came into practical use, the business being divided between many companies. Mr. Sibley, who, with other citizens of Rochester, was interested in two of the largest viz., the Atlantic. Lake, and Mississippi Valley and the New York, Albany, and Buffalo conceived the plan of uniting the scattered plants and conflicting patents in the hands of a single corporation. Lines that had proved un-
