James Monroe

From the Catholic Encyclopedia

A soldier, convert, born in Albemarle county, Virginia, U.S.A., 10 Sept., 1799; died at Orange, New Jersey, 7 Sept., 1870. He was the son of Andrew a brother of President James Monroe, and greatly resembled his illustrious uncle. After the usual course at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he graduated in 1815, and was commissioned a lieutenant of artillery. In the war with the Algerian pirates he was wounded, 17 June, 1815, while directing the guns of the frigate La Guerrière in a battle off Cape de Gata, Spain. As an aide to General Scott he served during 1817-22, and did garrison duty as a first lieutenant of the 4th Artillery to 30 Sept., 1832, when he resigned from the army. Settling in New York he entered public life, being elected to the Board of Aldermen, 1833-35, and to Congress, 1839-41. He was nominated to Congress also in 1846, but the election being contested and a new election ordered he declined to run again. In 1850-52 he was a member of the New York legislature, and then retired from publie life on the death of his wife. Previous to the outbreak of the Civil War he visited Richmond and sought by speeches and personal influence to prevent the secession of his native State, Virginia. All through the war he was a staunch upholder of the Union. His brother ANDREW F. MONROE, born at Charlottesville, Va., 5 March, 1824, after graduating at the U. S. Naval Academy served during the Mexican War, and while on a naval expedition to China, in 1853, also became a convert. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1854 and was ordained priest in 1860. He was for a number of years one of the faculty of St. Francis Xavier's College, New York, where he died 2 Aug., 1872.

CULLUM, Biog. Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U. S. Military Academy, I (New York, 1891); HEITMAN, Hist. Register and Dictionary of the U. S. Army (Washington, 1903). s. v.; National Encycl. of Am. Biog., s. v.; The College of St. Francis Xavier (New York, 1897).

THOMAS F. MEEHAN