Edward W . Serrell Edward Wellman Serrell ( November 5 , 1826 - April 25 , 1906 ) was a prominent American civil engineer during the mid 19th century . In 1861 , during the American Civil War he helped raise a regiment of engineers from New York state , the 1st New York Volunteer Engineer Regiment for the Union Army and was appointed colonel of the regiment . Later he was brevetted brigadier general . One of his more notable achievements during the war was his work on the " Marsh Battery " during the Second Battle of Charleston Harbor . Biography . Serrell was born in London , England on November 5 , 1826 . He was the tenth of eleven children of William and Ann Serrell . The family immigrated to New York in 1831 , and as a result , Edward received his early education in the schools of New York City . He later took up civil engineering under the direction of his father and an older brother . On April 6 , 1848 , he married Jane Pound , an English girl two years his senior . They had four children . From 1845 up to the time of the Civil War , Serrell was engaged in railroad and bridge design and construction . He was , successively , assistant engineer to the commissioners of the Erie Railroad , and assistant to the chief of the US Army Corps of Topographical Engineers . He was the assistant engineer of the 1848 Panama Survey , where he located the route of the railroad between Aspinwall and Panama . He later had charge of the surveys for the Northern Railroad of New Hampshire , and was , for a time , the engineer of the Central Railroad of New Jersey . He prepared plans and supervised the construction of the suspension bridge across the Niagara River at Lewiston in 1850 ; superintended the construction of the bridge at St . John , New Brunswick ; and planned the bridge over the St . Lawrence River at Quebec . He was later concerned with the building of the Hoosac Tunnel ( 1858 ) , the Bristol Bridge over the Avon River in England , which had one of the longest spans in that country at that time , and with the Union Pacific Railroad . During the Civil War , Colonel Serrell was in 126 actions . He was the chief engineer of the Department of the South until the 10th Corps moved to the Army of the James . He was the chief engineer of the 10th Corps and the Army of the James , and became chief of staff for that army , being brevetted a brigadier general . He contributed many useful inventions including long wire , armor plate , impromptu gun carriage s , and iron viaduct s . After the war , he published many reports on railroads and canals , was consulting engineer to many corporations , president of the Washington County Railroad , projected an interocean canal from San Blas to Pearl Island Harbor , and was the consulting engineer to the American Isthmus Ship Canal Company . He was listed as an honorary pallbearer at the funeral of Ulysses S . Grant . He even sketched his idea for a flying machine . One daughter , Josephine , married Robert Powell Page Wainwright , a career U . S . Army cavalry officer . Together they had three children including Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright IV of World War II fame and the namesake of Fort Wainwright in Alaska . Another daughter , Harriette , married Clarence Deems , an 1874 West Point graduate , in 1876 at General Serrell ’ s home near the Academy . She died in 1885 , but their son , Clarence , Jr . graduated from West Point in 1900 . His wife , Jane , died on August 29 , 1896 . They had four children , Edward William , Josephine Eva , Jesse Pound , and Harriette Marshall Serrell . Serrell married a longtime family friend , Marion Seaton Roorbach , on September 3 , 1900 . The newspaper reported at the time that he was “ Lying on a sick bed , from which he may never arise ” , ill from an attack of gastritis , “ too weak even to sit up . ” He did recover sufficiently to be moved to his wife ’ s home on Staten Island . She died in 1904 . He died on April 25 , 1906 , at Rossville , New York .