James Gillespie Birney
James Gillepsie Birney's son married Jonathan5 Deuel's
granddaughter. Does this provide a link into the family
rumor of there being a publisher in the family?
The thing that jolted me in the Hyatt information was the mention of James G. Birney, "Abolition President
candidate." Apparently a daughter of Silas I.6(Jonathan5) Deuel married one of his sons.

Indeed, James Gillespie Birney (1792-1857) (born Danville, KY, died Perth Amboy, NJ) was the presidential
candidate of the Liberty Party in 1840 and 1844. The Liberty Party was the first American political party to come
out against slavery (predating the Republican Party by more than a decade). Birney was the executive secretary of
the American Anti-Slavery Society, whose prominent members included Susan Brownell Anthony (descended from
the LC Brownells) and Lucretia Coffin Mott (who attended the Quaker boarding school in Nine Partners). In 1840
Birney was the vice president of the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. His early career --- in Alabama ---
was spent mainly as a lawyer, but his anti-slavery views didn't go over too well in Dixie.  

But his real fame was not so much as a candidate or lawyer as it was as a newspaper publisher. His newspaper,
"The Philanthropist," which was published in Cincinnati, was the most influential anti-slavery paper in the midwest.
Only William Lloyd Garrison's "The Liberator," published in Boston, was considered more influential.

So here is guy who was the second most famous anti-slavery publisher in the US, whose son married a Deuel from
Pine Plains. Hmmm, maybe we shouldn't throw "the publishing Deuel" out the window just yet.

What does this have to do with "Gods and Generals"? His son, Maj. Gen. David Bell Birney (1825-1864) was a
major figure in the Union Army of the Potomac, commanding a division in III Corps, replacing the legendary Maj.
Gen. Phil Kearny after he died at the battle of Chantilly, and late in the war temporarily commanding II Corps after
its  commander, Maj. Gen. (and future Democratic presidential candidate) Winfield Scott Hancock was wounded.

Birney was a taciturn man, one of his subordinates said that he was so colorless he could serve as the statue on
his own grave, another said that Birney "was as expressionless as a Dutch cheese."

Nonetheless he was a capable commander, especially for a "political general." At Gettysburg he commanded the
Union soldiers at "the Peach Orchard" and "Devil's Den." When they were forced back by Longstreet's corps on
July 2 the day was saved when Jeff Daniels --- I mean Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain --- and the 20th Maine
regiment took up and held a position behind them at "Little Round Top." Birney was so despondent that day after
losing so many men that he told a lieutenant that he wished he had died on the field (ironically, his wife bore him a
son  in Philadephia that very same day). Birney also had a major role at the battles of Fredericksburg and
Chancellorsville, which as I understand it are two battles depicted in "Gods and Generals."

I don't know which of James G. Birney's sons married a Deuel, I don't see much on IGI that is helpful (you would
think that a famous family like that would get better coverage). He founded Bay City, MI around 1840 --- where
there are some interesting Deuels in the 1880 census. One of his grandsons was another hero of Gettysburg, a
Captain in the 7th Michigan Cavalry, which charged into battle there to the cry of "Go, you Wolverines!" yelled by
the fearless (and often foolish) brigade commander, Maj. Gen. George Armstrong Custer (like his Confederate
counterpart Gen. George Pickett, Custer had the "distinction" of finishing last in his class at West Point).

Richard Gifford
September 8, 2003