John Eaton

John Eaton, Jr. (December 5, 1829 – February 9, 1906) was an American educator who served as the U.S. commissioner of Education and a Union Army colonel during the American Civil War. On March 12, 1866, the United States Senate confirmed his January 13, 1866 nomination for appointment to the grade of brevet brigadier general of volunteers to rank from March 13, 1865.

Early life and education Eaton was born in Sutton, New Hampshire, and attended Thetford Academy in Vermont. He was the eldest of nine children and his father was a farmer. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1854, studied at Andover Theological Seminary, and was ordained in 1862 to the Presbyterian ministry. He had to teach all four years he was in college in order to pay his board and tuition. He received a Master of Arts and Legum Doctor from Rutgers University.

Career

Civil War Eaton entered the American Civil War as a chaplain of the 27th Ohio Volunteer Infantry on August 15, 1861.

During the Siege of Vicksburg, Eaton was in possession of some letters from his brother's in-law family, the Shirleys of Goffstown, New Hampshire. He was to deliver them to the Shirleys of Vicksburg, as the two Shirley patriarchs were brothers. He found the Shirley house intact, as the one remaining house on the battlefield that had not been burned. The house had been saved by the heroic actions of Adeline Quincy Shirley, who stayed in the house and dared the rebels to burn it down with her inside. When a Confederate soldier came to do just that, he was shot and killed by the pursuing vanguard.

In the aftermath of the siege, Eaton found and befriended the Shirley family, who had been hiding in a nearby cave. He helped them find a different house to live in, as their house had become Grant's headquarters for the siege. It was there he met his future wife, Alice Shirley, the daughter of Adeline, who would later donate their land to be incorporated into the Vicksburg National Military Park, where the house still stands and Adeline and her husband James are buried.

In November 1862, after Lincoln's preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Major General Ulysses S. Grant appointed Eaton superintendent of freedmen. He was later given supervision of all military posts from Cairo to Natchez and Fort Smith. In November 1863, Grant appointed him as the superintendent of Negro Affairs for the Department of the Tennessee; there, Eaton supervised the establishment of 74 schools. On October 10, 1863, Eaton was made colonel of the 63rd United States Colored Infantry.

Postwar career Eaton left the military and eventually returned to his career in education. He remained with the freedman bureau until he was discharged on December 18, 1865,