The Biographical Dictionary of America/Alexander, Edward Porter

ALEXANDER, Edward Porter, soldier, was born at Washington, Wilkes county, Ga., May 26, 1835. After graduating at West Point in 1857 he was appointed assistant professor of engineering in the academy, and served in that capacity until he was detailed to engineering service in the Utah and Washington territory expeditions. In 1861 he resigned and entered the Confederate army as chief of ordnance and signal officer in the army of Northern Virginia. In 1862 he was made colonel, and he was with Longstreet at the battle of Gettysburg. He was promoted to be brigadier-general of artillery in 1864, and at the close of the civil war he was appointed professor of mathematics and engineering in the university of South Carolina, and retained the chair until 1870. He was general manager and president of several railroads 1871-92, capitol commissioner of Georgia 1883-'88; a government director of the Union Pacific Railroad Co., 1885-'87, and a member of the boards on the navigation of the Columbian river, Oregon, and on the ship canal between Chesapeake and Delaware bays, 1892-'94. He became an engineer arbitrator of the boundary survey between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, and a rice planter on South Island, S.C. He married, in 1860, Bettie Mason, of King George county, Va., He is the author of "Railway Practice," (1887).