Sumner, Edwin Vose

Life Span
to
    Full name
    Edwin Vose Sumner
    Place of Birth
    Burial Place
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Free State
    No. of Spouses
    1
    No. of Children
    9
    Family
    Elisha Sumner (father), Nancy Vose Sumner (mother), Hannah Wickersham Foster (wife)
    Occupation
    Military
    Businessman
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Military
    US military (Pre-Civil War)
    Union Army

    Edwin Vose Sumner (American National Bibliography)

    Scholarship
    In February 1861, as the southern states seceded, Sumner was one of three army officers that accompanied President-elect Abraham Lincoln on his train trip from Springfield, Illinois, to Washington, D.C. Upon the dismissal of David E. Twiggs from the service, Sumner was promoted to brigadier general on 16 March 1861, becoming one of three regular army brigadiers. One week later he was ordered to San Francisco to relieve Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston as commander of the Department of the Pacific. Traveling by way of Panama, Sumner held this post until 20 October, when he returned to the East Coast. Reporting to Major General George B. McClellan on 25 November, Sumner was assigned to command one of the Army of the Potomac's twelve infantry divisions. President Lincoln, becoming increasingly disenchanted with McClellan and his failure to boldly seize the initiative, issued orders in March 1862 for the Army of the Potomac to be organized into five corps. Sumner was given command of the Second, and he thereby became the oldest corps commander in the Army of the Potomac.
    E. C. Bearss, "Sumner, Edwin Vose," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-00970.html.
    How to Cite This Page: "Sumner, Edwin Vose," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/6670.