The Biographical Dictionary of America/Agnus, Felix

AGNUS, Felix, soldier, was born in Lyons, France, July 4, 1839. At an early age his father's family moved to Paris, where, having received preparatory instructions, he entered the College Jolie Clair, near Montrouge. When thirteen years old he took a voyage to the South Seas, visiting on his way St. Helena. He travelled along the western coast of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and made a sojourn at Madagascar. He voyaged across the Indian and Pacific oceans, and visited the coast of South America, making inland excursions through parts of Chili and Peru. Sailing around Cape Horn he crossed the Atlantic to France, and thus completed a circumnavigation of the globe. These voyages occupied four years. In 1859 he entered active military life in France. He served in the war of Napoleon III. with Austria, being a volunteer in the 3d Regiment Zouaves, and engaged in the battle of Montebello, May 20, 1859. He was appointed to a post in the Flying Corps under Garibaldi, which did good service near the Italian lakes. At the conclusion of the war he came to the United States, and enlisted as a private in the 5th New York, Duryee Zouaves. He became very popular with the rank and file of the regiment, and for having saved the life of General Kilpatrick at the battle of Big Bethel, June 10, 1861, he was promoted second lieutenant. During McClellan's Peninsular campaign in 1862, Lieutenant Agnus volunteered to lead a charge at Ashland Bridge, and was in several of the battles fought in front of Richmond. At the battle of Gaines' Mills, he was wounded, and conveyed to a hospital in Baltimore. Among the visiting attendants at the hospital were the two daughters of the editor of the Baltimore American, and the wounded young Frenchman came under their ministrations. The soldier fell in love with one of his nurses, and on Dec. 13, 1864, married her. On recovering from his wound, Lieutenant Agnus received his commission as captain, went to New York, where he assisted in raising the 2d Duryee Zouaves, of which he commanded the color company. The regiment was ordered to Louisiana in the fall of 1862, and garrisoned at New Orleans and Baton Rouge. On May 27, 1863, Captain Agnus was again wounded during the siege of Port Hudson, and was promoted major. Following the defeat of Port Hudson, the regiment was actively engaged in Louisiana; and in a skirmish at Fayetteville, while checking a charge, Major Agnus had a hand-to-hand fight with a Texan horseman, and received a severe sabre cut. He took part in the expedition to Sabine Pass, Texas, acting as commander of the "Pocahontas." The War Department having issued an order requiring regiments with decimated ranks to consolidate, Major Agnus went to New York and induced Governor Seymour to assign to his regiment four full companies of recruits; he was made lieutenant-colonel. He was with his regiment in the battles of Opequan, Cedar Creek, Fisher's Hill, and Winchester; was a personal witness of "Sheridan's ride," and was chosen to guard the Confederate prisoners at Fort Delaware, where he was given the brevet rank of colonel. He was brevetted brigadier-general on the removal of his regiment to Savannah, Ga., early in 1865, he being then only twenty-six years of age. He was detailed as inspector-general of the Department of the South, and commissioned to dismantle the Confederate forts in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. On Aug. 22, 1865, he resigned from the army and was appointed assistant assessor of Internal Revenue at Baltimore, but in a short time was invited to take charge of the business department of the Baltimore American, by Charles C. Fulton, Sr., its proprietor, whose daughter he had married. He thus became manager of the leading Maryland commercial newspaper.