The Biographical Dictionary of America/Abbot, Henry Larcom

ABBOT, Henry Larcom, soldier, was born at Beverly, Mass., Aug. 13, 1831. At the age of twenty-three he was graduated from West Point with the rank of brevet second-lieutenant of topographical engineers, and after serving in Washington in the office of the Pacific railroad surveys he was sent to survey that road between California and Oregon. At the breaking out of the civil war he entered it as a military engineer, and at its close he had risen to the rank of brevet brigadier-general. He held many responsible positions, and in 1870 was sent to Sicily with a party for the purpose of making observations on the eclipse of the sun. He was among the foremost engineers of the day, having made several useful inventions and written extensively on many subjects. Among his more prominent books are: "Siege Artillery in the Campaign Against Richmond," "Experiments and Investigations to Develop a System of Submarine Mines for Defending Harbors of the United States," "The Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River," and "Reports of the Board on Fortifications or Other Defences." In his work on this board he won eminent distinction. After forty-one years of distinguished service he was retired on Aug. 13, 1895. He was chairman of the military judges at the Centennial exposition in 1876, and of the higher jury at the Atlanta exposition in 1895; president of the board of engineers of the proposed Pittsburg and Lake Erie canal in 1896, and a member of the technical committee of the New Panama Canal Co., from 1897. He became a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical society and received the degree LL.D. from Harvard. He contributed to magazines.