Hancock

Hancock, WINFIELD SCOTT, a distinguished American general, was born at Montgomery Square, near Philadelphia, 14th February 1824. His grandfather was a Scotsman, his father an attorney of good position. He graduated at West Point in 1844, served with merit through the war with Mexico, and had reached the rank of captain when the civil war broke out. Commissioned in 1861 brigadier-general of volunteers, he did good service in organising the army of the Potomac, and was prominent in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam; at Fredericksburg, as major-general of volunteers, he led 5000 men to the desperate assault on Marye's Heights through a deadly fire from which less than 3000 came back. In June 1863 he was given the command of the 2d corps. At Gettysburg, Hancock was in command until Meade's arrival; and on 3d July he was severely wounded, but remained on the field until the enemy's last determined assault was repulsed by his corps. In 1864 he was conspicuous in the hard-fought battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor; at Spottsylvania he captured nearly an entire division, and carried a salient of field-works on the Confederate centre, afterwards known as the 'bloody angle,' which, with the help of the 6th corps, he held against Lee's desperate assaults. For this, and his services afterwards under Grant, he was created brigadier-general in the regular army, 12th August 1864. His wound now broke out again, and thereafter, while the war continued, his energies were directed mainly to the work of organisation. In 1866 he was promoted to major-general, and assigned to the command of the department of the Missouri, where he was for a time employed against the Indians. He was then transferred to the South, and in 1868 to the division of the Atlantic. To this post, after three years' command in Dakota, he was restored in 1872, and filled it till his death. He was the Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States in 1880, but was defeated by Garfield (q.v.). He died on Governor's Island, in New York harbour, 9th February 1886. Grant has written, 'Hancock stands the most conspicuous figure of all the general officers who did not exercise a separate command.' McClellan called him 'superb,' and the title stuck to him. He was a brave, fearless soldier, prompt in decision, and skilled to command; but one who would rather lead than send his troops forward, and whose presence in the thickest of the fight won him their confidence. See the Lives by Junkin and Norton (1880), Goodrich (1886), Walker (1890), and the Reminiscences of him by his widow (1887).