The New International Encyclopædia/Adams, Charles Francis, Jr.

ADAMS, Charles Francis, Jr. (1835—). An American soldier, financier, and writer. He is a son of Charles Francis Adams, and was born in Boston. Mass., May 27, 1835. He graduated at Harvard in 1856, studied law in the office of Richard Henry Dana, Jr., and was admitted to the bar in 1858. He entered the Union Army as first lieutenant in a Massachusetts cavalry regiment in 1861, became a captain in 1862, served as chief of squadron at Gettysburg, and at the close of the war was in command, as colonel, of a regiment of colored cavalry. In May, 1865, he was brevetted brigadier-general in the regular army, and in July retired from active service. From 1884 to 1890 he was president of the Union Pacific Railroad Company. From 1893 to 1895 he was chairman of the Massachusetts Park Commission, and as such took a prominent part in planning the present park system of the State. Since about 1874 he has devoted much of his time to the study of American history, and in recognition of his work in this field was chosen president of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1895, and of the American Historical Association in 1901. His writings and addresses both on problems of railway management and on historical subjects are marked by a singular clarity of statement and a degree of intellectual independence that has frequently given rise to widespread controversy. He has written: Railroads, Their Origin and Problems (New York, 1878); Notes on Railway Accidents (New York, 1879); Richard Henry Dana: A Biography (Boston, 1891); Three Episodes of Massachusetts History (Boston, 1892), a work which gives an account of the settlement of Boston Bay, of the Antinomian controversy, and of church and town government in early Massachusetts; Massachusetts: Its Historians and Its History (Boston, 1893), an excellent Life of Charles Francis Adams (Boston, 1900), in the American Statesmen Series, and Lee at Appomattox, and Other Papers (1902). In collaboration with his brother, Henry Adams, he also published Chapters of Erie, and Other Essays (New York, 1871).