George H . Sharpe George Henry Sharpe ( February 26 , 1828 – January 13 , 1900 ) was an American lawyer , soldier , secret service officer , diplomat , politician and a Member of the Board of General Appraisers . Early life . Sharpe was born in Kingston , Ulster County , New York . He graduated from Rutgers in 1847 , then studied law at Yale College , and was admitted to the bar in 1849 . Then he traveled to Europe and served 1851 - 52 as Secretary of Legation at Vienna . After his return in 1854 , he practiced law until he joined the Union Army in 1861 as a captain in the First Regiment of New York Volunteers . Civil War . Sharpe was appointed colonel of volunteers of the 120th New York Infantry in 1862 , and took part in all the battles of the Army of the Potomac . He served on the staffs of Generals Joseph Hooker , George G . Meade , and Ulysses S . Grant , and was appointed brevet brigadier general of volunteers in 1864 and brevet major general of volunteers in 1865 . In January 1863 , Sharpe assumed the intelligence role for Hooker that Allan Pinkerton had performed for McClellan . His estimates of enemy troop strength proved to be far more accurate than that of his predecessor . In April 1865 , as head of the Bureau of Military Information and assistant provost marshal , he paroled 28 , 000 Confederate Army soldiers , among them General Robert E . Lee , after the surrender of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House . Postbellum career . In 1867 , on request of William H . Seward , Sharpe became a special agent of the U . S . State Department and went to Europe to locate and investigate Americans who might have been involved in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln . Seward was particularly interested in finding John Surratt , whose mother Mary Surratt had been hanged as one of the assassination conspirators . Surratt was brought back to the United States and put on trial in a civilian court . The trial ended with a hung jury , and Surratt was soon set free , never to be tried again . From 1870 to 1873 , he was United States Marshal for the Southern District of New York , and took the census that demonstrated the great election frauds of 1868 in New York City , which led to the enforcement of the federal election laws for the first time in 1871 , and helped to smash the Tweed Ring . In 1873 he was appointed Surveyor of the Port of New York . In 1877 , President Rutherford Hayes asked the Collector of Customs Chester A . Arthur and his principal subordinates , Surveyor Sharpe and Naval Officer Alonzo B . Cornell to resign , which they refused to do . They were removed from office the next year . Afterward he became head of the commission appointed to promote the commercial relations between the United States and Central / South American countries with the rank of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary . He resigned after the inauguration of President Grover Cleveland in 1885 . He was a member of the New York State Assembly ( Ulster Co . , 1st D . ) in 1879 , 1880 , 1881 and 1882 ; and was Speaker in 1880 and 1881 . Federal Judicial Service . On July 2 , 1890 , President Harrison nominated Sharpe to serve as a Member of the newly created Board of General Appraisers . He was confirmed by the Senate on July 16 , 1890 , and received his commission on November 16 , 1890 . He served on the board until his resignation on March 1 , 1899 and was succeeded on the board by Judge William Barberie Howell . Personal life and death . Sharpe was married to Caroline Hasbrouck , daughter of Abraham Bruyn Hasbrouck , and their children were Severyn Bruyn Sharpe , a county judge , Henry G . Sharpe , a U . S . Army officer , and Katherine Lawrence Sharpe who married Ira Davenport . He died while visiting the Davenport ' s residence at 31 East 39th Street in New York City . He was buried at Wiltwyck Cemetery in Kingston , New York .