Stephen Minot Weld , Jr . Stephen Minot Weld Jr . ( Jan . 4 , 1842 – March 16 , 1920 ) , a member of Boston ' s illustrious Weld Family , was a horticulturalist and much - decorated United States Army officer of the American Civil War . Early life . Weld prepared for higher education at the Jamaica Plain boarding school mastered by his father , Stephen Minot Weld . Weld was an abstemious young man who claimed : " I did not touch a drop of wine or liquor all through my college career until about a month before I graduated , nor did I smoke until then . . " Once he arrived at Harvard College , however , Weld had little love of that institution ' s authority figures and wrote : " The whole spirit between the Faculty and the students was one of war . . . we looked on the Faculty as our oppressors , and we were - - a great many of us - - up to every devilment that we could think of , to trouble and bother them . . . The College then was more in the nature of a boarding - school . " Stephen Minot Weld ' s older cousin George Walker Weld ( for whom Weld Boathouse is named ) was at Harvard the same time as Stephen and the pair sometimes cooperated in their mischief . View on slavery . Weld was a first - year student at Harvard Law School when the war broke out and he was eager to join the action . Although Weld soon distinguished himself in this war which put and end to slavery in the United States , he was no abolitionist and had : " little liking for those he considered antislavery zealots . . . when abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner made an appearance at the Harvard class day exercises in 1860 , Weld was a member of the graduating class that booed and hissed him . Like most conservative upper - class New Englanders , Weld disliked slavery , but he had no special sympathy for the sufferings of blacks ; he felt that , if left alone , the South ' s ' peculiar institution ' would die out of its own accord . " Thus it is clear that Weld viewed the Union cause as essentially one of putting down Southern rebellion , not liberating slaves . Civil War . Weld was appointed a 2nd lieutenant in the 18th Massachusetts Regiment on 27 January 1862 , at the age of 19 . He was promoted to 1st lieutenant on 1 November of the same year and to captain on 1 June 1863 . He was honorably discharged on 25 December 1863 . His regiment was part of the Army of the Potomac and he participated in the battles of Second Battle of Bull Run , Antietam , and Gettysburg . He was twice captured by Confederate forces , and twice exchanged . A bullet once pierced his boot and he had his horse shot from under him . On 2 June 1864 he was commissioned as lieutenant colonel of the 56th Massachusetts Regiment and was promoted to colonel in command of the regiment on 31 May 1864 . He was mustered out of the Army on 12 July 1865 . On January 13 , 1866 , Weld was nominated by President Andrew Johnson to be breveted ( i . e . an honorary promotion ) to the rank of brevet brigadier general , U . S . Volunteers , to rank from March 13 , 1865 ( when he was 23 years old ) , for gallant and meritorious services . The U . S . Senate confirmed the brevet on March 12 , 1866 . Even today , Weld family members remember him as " the General . " Misfortune . After the Civil War , Weld returned home to misfortune . In 1867 , his father died suddenly , prompting his uncle William Fletcher Weld to erect Harvard ' s Weld Hall in his honor . Soon after , a felting mill in which he had inherited about $ 14 , 000 failed . He made a new start by borrowing $ 25 , 000 from friends to buy a cotton mill that was connected with the first venture . That mill , however , was swept away by a flood when a pond two miles ( 3 km ) away broke its dam . S . M . Weld & Co . . To pay his debts , Weld became a cotton broker and eventually built a fortune . Despite setbacks such as the embezzlement of $ 326 , 000 by a friend and business partner , the downtown Boston firm of " S . M . Weld & Company " prospered and opened branches in India and Japan . This made " the General ' another very wealthy Weld . Horticulture . Weld had a great interest in botany and became president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1906 , He also helped Charles Sprague Sargent build the collection at the Arnold Arboretum . But his greatest horticultural achievement was his own estate : Rockweld in Dedham , Massachusetts . Rockweld . Weld lived on a estate he named " Rockweld " in Dedham , most of which was surrounded by a high stone wall . He creating one of the finest rock gardens in the country and employed eight gardeners . His estate had a water tower and a dozen greenhouses , one of which was dedicated to growing grapes year round . He built his mansion on a craggy hill with a dramatic view of the Charles River valley . Outcrops , boulders , woodlands , and ponds dotted the surrounding property , offering endless opportunities to satisfy Weld ' s passion for horticulture . Frederick Law Olmsted sited the house and planned the driveway and west terrace . Weld designed the grounds , pathways , and an extensive rock garden . He brought plants from around the world to embellish his designs . At its peak , Rockwell had 500 varieties of flowering plants . A few years after Weld ' s death , the estate was sold to H . Wendell Endicott , son of Henry B . Endicott , who founded the Endicott Shoe Company . Endicott maintained and expanded the gardens , but razed Rockweld to build a Normandy French - style chateau designed by Charles Platt . This edifice , known as Endicott House , is now a conference facility maintained by MIT . Indian Neck . In his later years , Weld spent much of his time at the family compound he established near Cape Cod at Indian Neck , a spot which commands a majestic view of Bourne Cove and the Atlantic Ocean . There he created another spectacular garden and built a private 18 - hole golf course as well as several comfortable houses . In addition to time playing golf , Weld enjoyed fishing and shooting on the Cape . A transitional figure between the nineteenth century and the modern era , Weld also acquired hundreds of acres along the shores of Buzzards Bay and transferred lots to friends at cost . This created an enclave of old Yankee stock with similar values in a part of Massachusetts that was increasingly heterogeneous . Descendants of " the General " still own a cluster of six separate houses at the family compound in Wareham , although in recent decades a preponderance of female offspring has made the Weld surname rare among them . The historic cottages now house Edges , Bigelows , Bentons , and Baldwins . Family . Weld married Eloise Rodman ( of the Forest Hills family of that name ) in 1869 and they lived together on the Dedham estate . Stephen and Eloise had six boys and one girl before she died in 1898 Among these children , twins Stephen and Alfred succumbed to rheumatic fever at 17 and tuberculosis at 32 , respectively . Eight - year - old Lothrop Motley Weld drowned in the channel at Bourne Cove in Wareham a year after the family purchased their property there . In 1907 , his daughter Eloise died in England at the age of 28 . In 1904 , Weld married Susan Edith Waterbury , who was 24 years younger than he was and had been governess to his younger sons . On their honeymoon they toured the Civil War battlefields where Weld had fought 40 years earlier . Death . " The General " died in the winter of 1920 in Boca Grande , Florida . Befitting his status as a Civil War veteran , a single bugler played taps at his funeral .