John W . Phelps John Wolcott Phelps ( November 13 , 1813 – February 2 , 1885 ) , was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War , an author , an ardent abolitionist and presidential candidate . Soldier and abolitionist . Phelps was born in Guilford , Vermont , the son of Judge John and Lucy ( Lovell ) Phelps . He was appointed to the United States Military Academy on July 1 , 1832 , and graduated on July 1 , 1836 , with the brevet rank of Second Lieutenant , and was assigned to the 4th U . S . Artillery . He was promoted to Second Lieutenant on July 28 , 1836 . He fought in the Creek and Seminole War in 1838 , and participated in the Trail of Tears that same year . He was promoted to First Lieutenant on July 7 , 1838 , and Captain on March 31 , 1850 . During this period he served in the Seminole Wars in Florida , the Mexican - American War , and spent 1857 – 1859 with the Mormon Expedition . In his diaries , he wrote about the Mormon faith with extreme disdain . " Where else than in America could such a flat and puerile invention become enshrined as an established belief . From what trunk except one of the most vigeorous of free institutions could such a fungus of absolutism arise ? " In a December 1857 letter he compared Mormonism to a " snake coiled in the desert and concluded that it , like the snake , should be smitten immediately . " He was a strong advocate for use of military means to suppress what he viewed as the Mormon threat to American republicanism . He resigned from the army on November 2 , 1859 . At the beginning of the Civil War , he resided in Brattleboro , Vermont , where he wrote forceful articles pointing out the danger of the constantly increasing political influence of the slave state s . Civil War . On May 2 , 1861 , Phelps was appointed Colonel of the 1st Vermont Infantry and was mustered into U . S . service on May 8 . His regiment arrived at Fortress Monroe , Virginia on May 13 . On May 27 , commanding the 1st Vermont Infantry , 4th Massachusetts Infantry and 7th New York Infantry , Phelps moved 10 miles to Newport News , at the mouth of the James River . He was promoted to brigadier general on May 27 , 1861 . In November , 1861 , he was transferred to the Department of the Gulf under Major General Benjamin F . Butler , and Phelps left on an expedition to the Gulf of Mexico where his regiment took military possession of Ship Island , Mississippi . His regiment supported Commodore David Farragut ' s fleet in forcing open the Lower Mississippi in April , 1862 . They participated in taking possession of Fort Jackson and St . Philip , Louisiana at the Battle of Forts Jackson and St . Philip , which was instrumental in the capture of New Orleans , the largest city of the Confederacy , on May 1 , 1862 . Organizing of black troops . General Phelps was afterward stationed at Camp Parapet in Carrollton , seven miles from New Orleans . Many fugitive slaves arrived at the camp seeking refuge . General Phelps organized the black men of military age into companies . He then formally asked his commanding officer , General Butler , for arms for the blacks . General Phelps thought he could organize three regiments of Africans to help defend his camp . General Butler ordered Phelps to put the Negros to work cutting down trees around the camp , and instead of furnishing guns , ordered his quartermaster to send axes and tents for the fugitive slaves . General Phelps was unwilling to employ the Africans as mere laborers , becoming what he viewed as their slave - driver , " having no qualification that way , " and offered his resignation on August 21 , 1862 . General Butler refused to accept it . Later that August , General Phelps returned his commission to President Abraham Lincoln . David Dixon Porter who had assisted Commodor Farragut in capturing New Orleans , branded General Phelps " a crazy man , " and Butler called him " mad as a March Hare on the ' nigger question ' . After Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1 , 1863 , the federal administration adopted a policy of organizing Negro troops . The President offered General Phelps a Major General ' s commission . General Phelps wanted the commission backdated to the day of his resignation the prior year . The President could not allow the implied contravention of General Butler ' s original orders , which were in good standing for that time , and would not agree to General Phelps ' terms . At New Orleans , Phelps had organized a few squads of Negroes and drilled them daily . . . . Not knowing what to do with so many Negroes , Butler at first returned the runaway slaves to their masters . But still the contrabands came . Some of them were employed as cooks , nurses , washwomen , and laborers . . . . [ Finally ] Butler ordered . . . the exclusion of all unemployed Negroes and whites from his lines . " For his organization of and attempt to arm escaped slaves , Confederate President Jefferson Davis issued an order on August 21 , 1862 , declaring Phelps an outlaw , for having " organized and armed negro slaves for military service against their masters , citizens of the Confederacy . " Black Federal soldiers were condemned by the Confederacy as robbers and criminals , punishable by death . Many were warned by their officers before going into battle that they would be executed if captured . Presidential candidate . Leaving military service , Phelps returned to Brattleboro , Vermont where he became President of the Vermont Teacher ' s Association from 1865 to 1885 . He lived in Brattleboro until 1883 , when he married Anna Bardwell Davis . They moved back to his birthplace , Guilford , Vermont . He traveled across Europe and the United States , developing a reputation as a scholar and linguist . He authored " Phelps Elementary Reader for Public Schools Good Behavior " ( 1876 ) , and translated from the French three books : the Lucien de La Hodde ' s " The Cradle of Rebellions : A History of the Secret Societies of France " , " The Island of Madagascar : A Sketch , Descriptive and Historical " ( 1885 ) , and " The Fables of Florian " ( 1888 ) . He became very active in the Vermont Historical Society . Phelps was the candidate for the American Party / Anti - Masonic Party for president in 1880 . His running mate was Samuel C . Pomeroy of Kansas who four years later in 1884 would seek the White House as the presidential candidate of the American Prohibition National Party . In the 1880 race the Phelps / Pomeroy ticket garnered only 1 , 045 votes nationwide . They ran on an eleven - point platform calling for such things as the prohibition of alcoholic beverages , the prohibition of all secret lodges , justice for Indians , demanding the Bible be a required text in all educational institutions ; and the abolition of the electoral college . Until 2004 when Howard Dean ran for the presidential nomination , Phelps was the only Vermont resident to run for president . He was selected as vice president of the Vermont Historical Society from 1863 to 1885 He died in Guilford on April 2 , 1885 .