Bryant, William Cullen

Life Span
to
    Full name
    William Cullen Bryant
    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
    2
    Family
    Peter Bryant (father), Sarah Snell (mother), Frances Fairchild (wife)
    Education
    Other
    Other Education
    Williams College, MA
    Occupation
    Attorney or Judge
    Journalist
    Writer or Artist
    Other
    Other Occupation
    Poet
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Political Parties
    Republican

    William Cullen Bryant (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    While forcefully addressing the issues of the day, Bryant and the Post spoke in a moderate voice, seeking to convince through solid reasoning and eloquence. In the years before the Civil War, Bryant supported the new Republican party and its Free Soil platform. Indeed, it was Bryant who introduced Abraham Lincoln when he gave his famous speech at Cooper Union in 1860. When Lincoln became president, the Evening Post, while being generally supportive of the administration, urged more decisiveness and vigor in the waging of the war. Bryant not only corresponded with Lincoln, but, in 1862, also joined a delegation pressing for greater military action. Upon the assassination of Lincoln, Bryant read to the bereaved New Yorkers gathered in Union Square his poem "The Death of Lincoln" (1865), which began, "Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare, / Gentle and merciful and just!"
    Albert F. McLean, "Bryant, William Cullen," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-00213.html.
    Chicago Style Entry Link
    Brown, Charles H. William Cullen Bryant: A Biography. New York: Scribner, 1971.
    view record
    Symington, Andrew James. William Cullen Bryant: A Biographical Sketch. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1880. view record
    How to Cite This Page: "Bryant, William Cullen," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/34087.