Newton Martin Curtis

From The New York Times, January 9, 1910:

  GEN N. M. CURTIS
      DIES OF APOPLEXY
     _____________
"Hero of Fort Fisher," Where He
   Lost an Eye, Stricken in
     Street Near His Home
     _____________
   SIX YEARS IN CONGRESS
     _____________
Author of "From Bull Run to Chancel-
 lorsville," and ex-New York State
     Commander of G. A. R.
     ______________
  Gen. Newton Martin Curtis, "the Hero
of Fort Fisher," at one time State Com-
mander of the Grand Army of the Re-
public, author of "From Bull Run to
Chancellorsville," and recently an Assist-
ant Inspector General of the National
Soldiers' Home, with headquarters in New
York City, was on his way home from his
office yesterday afternoon when at Irving
Place and Fifteenth Street he was
stricken with apoplexy. He was carried
into the office of the Consolidated Gas
Company at that corner, where he died
before a doctor arrived. He was a huge
man, standing six feet and four inches, and
built proportionately.
 Gen. Curtis was 74 years old. His wife
died many years ago. He leaves four
grown daughters, one of whom is a school
teacher in this city. Two are librarians
doing work in the West, and the fourth
is married and lives in Minnesota. Gen.
Curtis had been living in New York
since 1898, at the home of friends at 20
Irving Place. For the past ten or twelve
years he had been connected with the
headquarters of the National Home for
Disabled Volunteer Soldiers here and had
been writing books.
 The Putnams published his "From Bull
Run to Chancellorsville" in 1906, and he
has been at work since then on a his-
torical work which he purposed calling
"The Making and Welding of the Na-
tion." Yesterday morning when he went
to his office, the National Soldiers' Home,
in the New York Life Insurance Building,
at 346 Broadway, he put the copies of
part of this work into the hands of sev-
eral of his friends there.
 "I want you to read it," he said. "I
may not be able to finish it."
 He left copies with Col. W.E. Elwell,
Inspector General and Chief Surgeon; Col.
C.W. Crawford, an Assistant Inspector
General, and Col. Moses Harris, the
Treasurer. He had brought the work only
up to 1862, but he had it copied so that
his closest friends could read that much
of it.
 Gen. Curtis was born in St. Lawrence
County on May 21, 1835, where he still
had, at Ogdensburg, a home. He attended
the Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary.
 The day after Fort Sumter surrendered
to the Confederates it was suggested in
the town of De Peyster, N.Y., where he
was living, that it send fourteen men
to Ogdensburg to form part of a
company that should join the Union
forces. Curtis, then 26 years old, was for
organizing a company and taking it to
Ogdensburg to join a regiment there.
 He started in to raise a company before
President Lincoln called for volunteers,
and in April was in Albany with eighty
men whose services, along with his own,
he wanted to offer. The little company
was made a part of the Sixteenth, New
York, and young Curtis was its Captain.
He was at the first Battle of Bull Run,
and served with the Army of the Potomac
until the Battle of Antietam. He was
wounded during the Peninsular Campaign,
after which he was promoted to be Lieuten-
ant Colonel of the 142d Regiment. He was
soon made its Colonel, and it was with
that command he saw his hardest fight-
ing.
 The exploit oftenest connected with his
name was the assault and capture of Fort
Fisher, which was a strong sea coast
fortification in North Carolina, between
Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean.
It resisted all attacks until the Winter of
1864-65. His regiment was part of a force
under the command of Gen. Butler which
was landed near the fort.
 Col. Curtis led his men close up to the
fort, while the fleet bombarded it. Gen.
Butler gave up the fight, and ordered
Col. Curtis to retire. The Colonel and
his men remained near the walls of the
fort. He kept sending back word that he
could take it if his superior would let
him. He finally retired after the fourth
order directing him to do so.
 Upon the return of the expedition to
Fort Monroe Gen. Grant, hearing of the
Colonel's exploit, sent for him and asked
a lot of information about the sea coast
fortification and the Colonel was bre-
vetted a Brigadier General. Gen. Grant
ordered that another attempt be made on
the fort, replacing Gen. Butler with Gen.
Terry. Another brigade was added to the
force.
 Gen. Curtis's brigade advanced by de-
grees, lying down flat and then running
forward ten or fifteen yards. The enemy
got in one volley at them, which was in-
effective, and by that time the attackers
were just under the walls of the fort and
below the plane of fire. The attackers
scaled the walls and took the bastian
nearest the Cape Fear River, and then
began a stubborn fight toward the sea
coast end, driving the garrison from one
traverse to another.
 Though wounded four times during the
day, Gen. Curtis kept his command until
sunset, when an exploding shell sent a
piece of metal against his head, knocking
him senseless and robbing him of his left
eye. He remained unconscious five hours,
and it was thought that he was dead.
His obituary was written by the New
York newspaper correspondents. He was
commissioned Brigadier General after that
exploit, and some years later received a
medal of honor for his services there.
 After the war he was made Postmaster
of Depeyster, his native town, since which
time he has held many offices. He was
appointed Collector of Customs in the Dis-
trict of Oswegatchie in 1866; was ap-
pointed a special agent of the United
States Treasury the next year, from
which he resigned in 1880; was elected
President of the State Agricultural Soci-
ety in 1880, was soon afterward made
Secretary of the New York Agricultural
Experiment Station.
 He was a member of the State Legisla-
ture from 1884 to 1890, and was a member
of Congress from 1891 to 1897. He was
elected State Commander of the G. A. R.
in 1888, and has been an Assistant In-
spector General of the National Home for
Disabled Volunteer Soldiers since 1898,
with headquarters in this city. He wrote
and lectured a great deal, his two sub-
jects being the civil war and the advisa-
bility of abolishing the death penalty in
this country.