John A. Logan was born near what is now Murphysboro, Illinois, the son of Dr. John Logan and Dr. Logan's second wife, Elizabeth (Jenkins) Logan.[1] He studied with his father and with a private tutor, then studied for three years at Shiloh College. He enlisted in the 1st Illinois Infantry for the Mexican–American War, and received a commission as a second lieutenant and assignment as the regimental quartermaster.
U.S. Representative Logan fought at Bull Run as an unattached volunteer in a Michigan regiment, and then returned to Washington where, before he resigned his congressional seat on April 2, 1862, he entered the Union Army as Colonel of the 31st Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which he organized.[4] He was known by his soldiers as "Black Jack"[5] because of his black eyes and hair and swarthy complexion, and was regarded as one of the most able officers to enter the army from civilian life. In a time when political generals usually performed poorly in battle, Logan was an exception.
Before resigning his seat, Union Army Colonel Logan served in the army of Ulysses S. Grant in the Western Theater and was present at the Battle of Belmont on November 7, 1861, where his horse was killed, and at Fort Donelson, where he was wounded on February 15, 1862. Soon after the victory at Donelson, he resigned his seat on April 2, 1862, and was promoted to brigadier general in the volunteers, as of March 21, 1862. Major John Hotaling served as his chief of staff. To confuse matters, the 32nd Illinois was commanded at Shiloh by a different Colonel John Logan. During the Siege of Corinth, John A. Logan commanded first a brigade and then the 1st Division of the Army of the Tennessee.[6] In the spring of 1863, he was promoted to major general to rank from November 29, 1862.
In Grant's Vicksburg Campaign, Logan commanded the 3rd Division of James B. McPherson's XVII Corps, which was the first to enter the city of Vicksburg in July 1863 after its capture. Logan then served as the city's military governor. In November 1863 he succeeded William Tecumseh Sherman in command of the XV Corps; and at the Battle of Atlanta (July 22, 1864), after the death of James B. McPherson during the day, he assumed command of the Army of the Tennessee. He was relieved a short time afterward by Oliver O. Howard. He returned to Illinois for the 1864 elections but rejoined the army afterward and commanded his XV corps in Sherman's Carolinas Campaign.
Logan had been disappointed when Howard was given permanent command of the Army of the Tennessee after McPherson's death, and Sherman arranged for Logan to lead the army during the May 1865 Grand Review in Washington.
Logan was deeply embittered by the loss. He believed that President Chester A. Arthur’s supporters were disloyal after Arthur lost the Republican nomination.[7] Logan obstructed Arthur’s nomination of journalist William Eleroy Curtis to be Secretary of the Latin American Trade Commission, claiming that Curtis made “damaging disclosures… to the Democratic National Committee.”[8] Curtis threatened to mobilize his press resources against Logan's re-election bid.[8] The controversy eventually dissipated.[9][10] The 1885 US Senate election in Illinois was contentious, and Logan only won after a Democratic representative died and was replaced with a Republican.
Credit Mobilier Scandal
In September 1872, the New York newspaper The Sun reported that many major politicians were bribed by Union Pacific Railroad, and Credit Mobilier. In response to this Congress created the Poland Committee to investigate these accusations. The committee found out that many senators including Logan were involved. In February 1873, the House was convinced that it should share this information with the Senate. The House said to the Senate that these politicians including Logan were possibly involved with the scandal.
Logan explained that he rejected The Credit Mobilier official Oakes Ames first offer, but a few months later Logan accepted Ames offer of 325 dollars. Logan was exonerated by the committee report.[11][12]
Death
John A. Logan's funeral at Hutchinson's vault
Logan showed signs of illness when the 49th United States Congress opened its first official session on December 7, 1886. By mid-December, Logan's arms swelled and his lower limbs were in pain. After several days of intense discomfort, the ailment subsided. He relapsed a few days later and eventually struggled to maintain consciousness. On December 24, Logan's doctors conceded that the condition might be fatal. Around three o'clock in the afternoon on December 26, Logan died at his home in Columbia Heights, Washington, D.C.[13] After his death, Logan's body lay in state in the United States Capitol.[14] He was temporarily interred in a vault at Rock Creek Cemetery on December 31, 1886[15] until he could be reburied in a newly constructed mortuary chapel at the United States Soldiers' and Airmen's Home National Cemetery in Washington on December 26, 1888, the second anniversary of his death.[16]
Published books
Logan was the author of two books on the Civil War. In The Great Conspiracy: Its Origin and History (1886), he sought to demonstrate that secession and the Civil War were the result of a long-contemplated "conspiracy" to which various Southern politicians had been party since the Nullification Crisis; he also vindicated the pre-war political positions of Stephen A. Douglas and himself.[17] He also wrote The Volunteer Soldier of America (1887). His son, John Alexander Logan Jr., was also an army officer and posthumously received the Medal of Honor for actions during the Philippine–American War. His brother-in-law, Cyrus Thomas, participated in the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871.
Logan was related to Cornelius Ambrosius Logan (1806–1853), the Irish-American actor and playwright, possibly as a first cousin. John Logan adopted Cornelius' daughter Kate (1847–1872), probably in 1866.[18] Cornelius' son Cornelius Ambrose Logan, a physician and diplomat, wrote a memoir of John Logan which was included in his The Volunteer Soldier of America.
The State of Illinois commissioned an equestrian statue of the general that now stands in Chicago'sGrant Park. Another equestrian statue stands in Logan Circle in Washington, D.C., which gives its name to the surrounding neighborhood. At #4 Logan Circle, a former Logan residence, now called John Logan House, displays a variety of exterior and interior plaques to celebrate Logan's achievements as soldier and statesman.[19]
Logan is one of only three individuals mentioned by name in the Illinois state song:
On the record of thy years,
Abraham Lincoln's name appears,
Grant and Logan, and our tears,
Illinois, Illinois,
Grant and Logan, and our tears,
Illinois.[22]
Logan was at one time honored with the naming of a street in Lansing, Michigan. Community activists persuaded the city council to co-rename the street as Martin Luther King Boulevard in 1991. Logan's name was dropped completely a few years later. See Capitol Loop#Street name changes
Ft. Logan National Cemetery established 1887 in Denver, Colorado is named after him.
Logan's final resting place at the U.S. Soldiers' and Airmen's Home National Cemetery is a granite, Norman-style mausoleum, design by the former supervising architect of the U.S. Treasury Department, Alfred B. Mullett, which houses the remains of General John A. Logan; his wife, Mary S. Logan; daughter, Mary Logan Tucker; and grandsons, Captain Logan Tucker and George E. Tucker.[23]
^ ab"W.E. Curtis: He Thinks Gen. Logan Had Better Let Him Alone". Chicago Tribune. 31 December 1884.
^"In The United States Senate". Wood County Reporter. 2 April 1885.
^"Senator Again: The Soldier-Statesmen Chosen His Own Successor in the United States Senate". Chicago Daily Tribune. 20 May 1885.
^U.S. Senate Historical Office, United States Senate Election, Expulsion and Censure Cases: 1793–1990 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1995), pp. 189–1995.
Cottingham, Carl D., Preston Michael Jones, and Gary W. Kent, General John A. Logan: His Life and Times, American Resources Group, 1989, ISBN0-913415-11-1.
