Stewart, Alexander Peter

Life Span
to
    Full name
    Alexander Peter Stewart
    Place of Birth
    Burial Place
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    South
    Origins
    Slave State
    No. of Spouses
    1
    No. of Children
    3
    Family
    William Stewart (father), Elizabeth Decherd (mother), Hattie Bryon Chase (wife)
    Education
    West Point (US Military Academy)
    Occupation
    Military
    Educator
    Political Parties
    Whig
    Military
    US military (Pre-Civil War)
    Confederate Army

    Alexander Peter Stewart (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    Stewart, Alexander Peter (2 Oct. 1821-30 Aug. 1908), soldier, educator, and park commissioner, was born at Rogersville, Tennessee, the son of William Stewart and Elizabeth Decherd. He entered the U.S. Military Academy on 1 July 1838 and in 1842 graduated twelfth in a class of fifty-six. While at West Point, he roomed for two years with future Union general John Pope and for a time with future Confederate general James Longstreet. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Third Artillery and ordered to Fort Macon, North Carolina. After one year's service at the coastal fort, he returned to West Point to become an assistant professor of mathematics. On 31 May 1845 he resigned his commission and in August married Hattie Bryon Chase; they had three children. From 1845 until 1861 he was an academic, holding professorships of mathematics and mental and moral philosophy first at Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tennessee, and then at Nashville University.

    A Whig in politics, he supported John Bell for the presidency in 1860, and although opposed to secession, on 17 May 1861 he was commissioned a major in the Artillery Corps of the Provisional Army of Tennessee.
    E. C. Bearss, "Stewart, Alexander Peter," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/05/05-00746.html.
    How to Cite This Page: "Stewart, Alexander Peter," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/6648.