land, July 8, 1863, but in three months returned to the front and served through the years 1863 and 1864, accompanying General Sheridan through the Shenandoah Valley. At Trevillian Station, Virginia, June 11, 1863, with three hundred men he charged the Confederates and captured eight hundred men; but as he had broken through the Confederate lines, he was soon surrounded and lost all but forty-five of his men. General Sheridan in his history of this campaign praises this action of General Alger very highly.
At the close of the war, Alger was brevetted brigadier-general "for gallant and meritorious services," and major-general for his action at Trevillian Station.
After the war, in 1866, he made his home in Detroit, Michigan, becoming in the course of time president of two lumber companies, which owned large tracts of land from which were cut over 140,000,000 feet of timber annually. He became also director of several banks and manufactories. He is a man of wealth. During his long and varied business life he has had but one lawsuit, and he was never sued. He has never been a speculator. He says, "I believe the thing to do is to carry on business in such a way as to employ laboring men in large numbers, helping to develop the state, and building up its industries, and so being of some use, not only to myself but to the community, I have never believed that stock speculations or purchasing or selling 'futures' on any of the necessaries of life was a legitimate business. I have always tried to make my word my bond, and any intimation I might make, my word. I claim that it is the highest compliment that can be paid to any man to say that he has the confidence and esteem of the people among whom he lives; and I have even more pride in the kindly regard shown me by the people of Detroit and Michigan than in any other success in life."
In 1884 General Alger was a delegate to the Republican national convention, and was nominated and elected in the same year the twentieth governor of Michigan. He was inaugurated into the office in 1885, and for two years filled the position with fidelity, declining a renomination. His name was prominent for nomination for the presidency, in the Republican convention of 1888, and he received one hundred and forty-three votes on the fifth ballot. In the next election he was a Republican elector-at-large. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and he served as commander-inchief of the order, 1889-90. He is also a member of the Loyal Legion.
