William Babcock Hazen Papers
name: label: Creator
content: Belknap, William W. (William Worth), 1829-1890
label: Creator
content: Garfield, James A. (James Abram), 1831-1881
label: Creator
content: Greely, Adolphus Washington
label: Creator
content: Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, 1822-1893
label: Creator
content: Hazen, William Babcock, 1830-1887
label: Creator
content: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
label: Creator
content: Sheridan, Philip Henry, 1831-1888
label: Creator
content: Sherman, William T. (William Tecumseh), 1820-1891
label: Creator
content: Webster, Daniel, 1782-1852
label: Names
content: Lincoln, Robert Todd
place: label: Place
content: Greenland -- Exploration
label: Place
content: United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
topic: label: Topic
content: Arctic regions -- Discovery and exploration -- 1880-1890
label: Topic
content: Eskimos -- Greenland
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: In 1985, the Smithsonian received from the Estate of Fredrick McLean Bugher, grandnephew of General Hazen's wife Mildred McLean Hazen, manuscripts and letters concerning General Hazen. Part of the collection was rescued by a private individual from a Lorton, Virginia land fill and sold to the Smithsonian in 1987 in two sections.  The first section contained material about the career of General William Babcock Hazen as chief signal officer of the United States Army. The second section contained manuscript materials related to Hazen's duties on the frontier and Indian tribes covering the period of 1855 to 1860, and from 1866 to 1880.  Also included are family letters and land holdings in the Midwest.
creator: label: Creator
content: Belknap, William W. (William Worth), 1829-1890
label: Creator
content: Garfield, James A. (James Abram), 1831-1881
label: Creator
content: Greely, Adolphus Washington
label: Creator
content: Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, 1822-1893
label: Creator
content: Hazen, William Babcock, 1830-1887
label: Creator
content: Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865
label: Creator
content: Sheridan, Philip Henry, 1831-1888
label: Creator
content: Sherman, William T. (William Tecumseh), 1820-1891
label: Creator
content: Webster, Daniel, 1782-1852
culture: label: Culture
content: Inuit -- Greenland
setName: label: See more items in
content: William Babcock Hazen Papers
abstract: label: Summary
content: Papers document General William Babcock Hazen's military career, primarily through correspondence, photographs, and publications.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: General William Babcock Hazen was born September 27, 1830 in West Hartford, Vermont.  Four years later, the family moved to a farm outside Hiram, Portage County, Ohio where he attended school with James A. Garfield.   Hazen's goal was service in the Army, and he wrote his congressman for admission to the United States Military Academy at West Point.  Hazen graduated in 1855, twenty-eighth out of a class of thirty-four.  

After graduation, General Hazen was assigned as Brevet Second Lieutenant, Company D, Fourth Infantry, Redding, California.  After arriving in California, he was ordered to Fort Lane in the Oregon Territory.  Lieutenant Hazen was authorized to establish a command at Grand Ronde and build a blockhouse that became the post Fort Yamhill, located west of Portland, Oregon.  On April 20, 1857, he was transferred to Fort Jones, California, and then ordered to join the Eighth Infantry, Fort Davis, Texas.  Hazen was transferred to Fort Inge, Texas, to protect a road from San Antonio to Eagle Pass.  During a chase, Hazen was wounded by a bullet that was not removed.  The lingering effect of the bullet wound would cause him frequent pain.

During the period of service in Texas, Hazen reportedly gained leadership experience, practical military knowledge, and considerable confidence in his own abilities.  Following twelve months of convalescence, Hazen was nominated assistant instructor of military tactics at West Point on January 28, 1861.  He was promoted to First Lieutenant on April 1861 and captain on May 14, 1861.  Colonel James A. Garfield influenced the appointment of Hazen as colonel in command of the newly organized forty-first Ohio Volunteer Regiment.  Hazen quickly transformed the regiment's inexperienced personnel into a firmly disciplined body.  The intensive training paid large dividends later in the war, and he always held the regiment in high regard.

As brigade and division commander, General Hazen led troops in many important battles and campaigns:  Shiloh (Place of Peace), Stones River, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Atlanta, Resaca, Picketts Mill, Jonesboro, Fort McAllister, and Bentonville.  On December 13, 1864, Hazen was appointed a major general of volunteers in recognition of long and faithful service and the capture of Fort McAllister. It was after the performance of his troops at Fort McAllister that a friendly relationship developed with General William T. Sherman.  With the capitulation of the Confederate armies in spring of 1865, Hazen's division and the Army of the Tennessee left North Carolina where they saw their last fighting.  The destination was Washington, D.C., site of a two-day grand review of the victorious Union Armies.  On May 19, 1865 Hazen was elevated to commander of the Fifteenth Corps.  After a thirty day furlough, he held command of the District of Middle Tennessee until the following summer.  In July 1866, Hazen returned west.

In August 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant granted Hazen indefinite leave to observe the Franco-Prussian War.  He viewed several battles and personally interviewed Otto von Bismarck and General Helmut von Moltke.  Observations and research convinced Hazen that the United States Army was mismanaged and lacked tactical and logistical organization.

Before returning to the Sixth Infantry command, Hazen married Mildred McLean, the twenty-one year-old daughter of prominent Cincinnati Enquirer owner Washington McLean.  A son John was born in 1876, but died at the age of twenty-two in 1898.  

In June 1877, Hazen was appointed military attaché to the United States Legation in Vienna, Austria, and  assigned as military observer of the Russo-Turkish War that had started in April 1877.  

In 1878 Colonel Stanley accused Colonel Hazen of perjury and cowardice in the Civil War and requested a court-martial.  Colonel Hazen retaliated by formally requesting that Stanley be arraigned by a court-martial on charges of publishing and circulating libelous material against him.  On March 19, 1879, General Sherman reluctantly recommended that both generals be arraigned by the same court-martial.  The New York Tribune reported "inasmuch as by the decisions of the court-martial Hazen has secured a substantial vindication."  Hazen returned to Fort Buford.

While on detached service in Washington, D.C., Hazen actively campaigned for James A. Garfield for president.   On August 24, 1880, General Albert James Myer, Chief of the Army Signal Corps, died, opening up a staff position subject to presidential appointment.  President Rutherford B. Hayes, after consulting with President-elect Garfield, announced the promotion of Hazen to the rank of brigadier general and appointment as chief signal officer. One of Hazen's lasting legacies in this new role was advancing the development of meteorological science in the Army Signal Corps.  

In May 1880, Lady Franklin Bay in northern Canada was chosen as the site for a signal service polar station, one of several conducted by eleven nations for the first International Polar Year (1882-1883).  The initial two-year expedition set out in 1881 under the command of Regular Army First Lieutenant Adolphus W. Greely, a Civil War veteran from Massachusetts.  The twenty-five man party did not get relief from the long winter in 1882, and a second rescue attempt was disrupted by ice.  In September 1883, Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln, decided it was too late to send another relief party and they were left to spend a third winter in the Arctic.  The demoralized party was forced to march south in search of supplies and landed at Cape Sabine, spending the next eight months in desperate circumstances. In June 1884, rescuers finally reached them and found only Greely and seven others alive.  The remaining expedition members froze or starved to death.

Hazen never forgave Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln for his inaction with the Greely Arctic Expedition, and in 1884 Lincoln censured Hazen for his criticism.  Hazen replied to Lincoln by letter, which was returned with a warning to keep the matter private.  Hazen went to the press and stated in a published account that he wrote such a letter. He immediately found himself ordered before another court-martial, resulting in a reprimand by President Chester A. Arthur for "unwarranted and captious criticism."  Greely supported Hazen's position.  In 1885, Hazen produced A Narrative of Military Service, a report devoted to the defense of his Civil War record and personal reputation.

Health problems-diabetes and recurring pain from his bullet wound-forced Hazen to obtain a 12-month leave of absence from his military service.  On January 13, 1887, he attended a White House reception where he caught a cold.  He died on January 16, 1887, at the age of fifty-six.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 4 Cubic feet (11 boxes)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1855-1909
custodhist: label: Custodial History
content: The collection was transferred to the Archives Center from the Armed Forces History Division (now Division of Political and Military History) on August 20, 1987.
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0427
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Cartes-de-visite
label: Type
content: Correspondence
label: Type
content: Diplomas
label: Type
content: Legal documents
label: Type
content: Military commissions
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: This collection is divided into six series.

Series 1, Biographical Materials, 1885-1867

Series 2, Correspondence and Military Forms 1856-1886 and undated

Series 3, Correspondence to General William Babcock Hazen, 1861-1887

Series 4, Correspondence of Hazen Family, 1858-1909

Series 5, Photographs, 1864-1881

Series 6, Publications, 1865-1886
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Processed by Robert Ageton (volunteer), September 2004, and Katrina Schoorl (intern), 2010; supervised by Craig Orr and Alison Oswald, archivists.

Collection digitized by Noah Stewart, digital imaging technician, 2022.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Cartes-de-visite
label: Genre/Form
content: Correspondence -- 1850-1900
label: Genre/Form
content: Diplomas
label: Genre/Form
content: Legal documents
label: Genre/Form
content: Military commissions
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The General William Babcock Hazen Collection, 1856-1905, consists of approximately four cubic feet of material.  Collection materials include biographical, correspondence (military and family), documents on the Greely Arctic Expedition, photographs, stereographs, and material on General Hazen's book, A Narrative of Military Service.