Daniel Ullman Daniel Ullman ( April 28 , 1810 – September 20 , 1892 ) was an American lawyer and politician from New York and was a Major General in the American Civil War . Political career . Born in Wilmington , Delaware , Ullman graduated from Yale University in 1829 and moved to New York City , where he began practicing law . A member of the Whig Party , he became a prominent prominent member of the faction opposed to the leadership of William H . Seward . A frequent candidate for office , his most notable campaign was as the American Party candidate for the governorship of New York in 1854 , in which he won 26 % of the vote . Witness in the Burdell - Cunningham Trial . In late 1856 Ullman moved into a boarding house that was run by Mrs . Emma Augusta Cunningham at 31 Bond Street in Manhattan . The attorney did not really socialize much with his fellow lodgers , but he attended a party held in the boarding house on January 14 , 1857 . Although he later testified that he only spent half an hour at the party , he did admit seeing some people there who he recognized as respectable people . He probably saw two of his fellow lodgers , Dr . Harvey Burdell and Mr . John Eckel . Burdell , a wealthy dentist , had been having a close relationship with Mrs . Cunningham How close would be a subject of dispute . She claimed she married him , and would later try to pass off a hired baby as her own by him . Mrs . Cunningham also seemed to be carrying on a close relationship with Mr . Eckel . On January 31 , 1857 Burdell would be stabbed to death by an intruder while at his desk in the boarding house . Suspicion fell on Mrs . Cunningham and Mr . Eckel , and a coroner ' s court was held to examine the evidence regarding the murder . Mr . Ullman was a witness ( oddly he had come home late , heard nothing unusual , and went to his room , so he was not suspected ) . The next morning he was awakened by the noise of the police and Mrs . Cunningham and others upon the discovery of Dr . Burdell ' s body . Ullman ' s testimony would be relatively trivial , except that he claimed Mrs . Cunningham did show grief and horror at the event . The Coroner ' s Court was presided over by Coroner Edward Connory , an Irish immigrant who enjoyed teasing Mr . Ullman , who was good natured enough to return the banter . Cunningham and Eckel were both tried for the murder of Burdell , and prosecuted by New York City ' s District Attorney A . Oakley Hall later Mayor of the city . They were acquitted . The case was never solved . Ullman ' s experience as an unexpected witness in a famous unsolved New York City murder mystery was somewhat repeated in 1870 , when Major General Francis Preston Blair Jr . was a witness to members of the family of Benjamin Nathan running out of their home for help when they found Mr . Nathan murdered . The Nathan home was on West 23rd Street in Manhattan . General Blair was in bed in a hotel across the street , and awaken by the cries of the Nathan family members . Blair had been the running mate to former New York Governor Horatio Seymour when they ran for President and Vice President against Ulysses Grant and Schuyler Colfax in 1868 . Seymour had run for re - election to his first term as Governor of New York in 1854 , and was defeated by Myron Clark due , in part , to the third party candidacy of Ullman as the Know Nothing Candidate running such a successful campaign . Civil War Service . During the Civil War , Ullman became a colonel in the 78th New York Infantry . Captured at the Battle of Cedar Mountain in August 1862 , he was detained at Libby Prison until he was paroled two months later . He later approached President Abraham Lincoln about the possibility of enlisting African Americans as soldiers . Though Lincoln was cool to the measure , he did discuss the matter with Ullman again . In January 1863 Ullman was promoted to brigadier general and sent to Louisiana , where he raised five regiments of African Americans as soldiers in a unit that was designated the Corps d ' Afrique . Upon the end of the war , Ullman was mustered out and given the rank of major general . Post war . Ullman died in Nyack , New York in September 1892 .