Albert Taylor Bledsoe
Albert Taylor Bledsoe [1]
a minister and educator, was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, November 9, 1809. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1830, and served in the army until August, 1832. In 1833-34 he was adjunct professor of mathematics and teacher of French at Kenyon, and in 1835-36 professor of mathematics at Miami. Having studied theology, he was ordained a clergyman in the. Protestant Episcopal Church, and preached until 1838. In that year he began the practice of law at Springfield, Illinois, and, continued to practice there and at Washington, D.C., until 1848. From 1848 to 1854 he was professor of mathematics and astronomy in the University of Mississippi; from 1854 to 1861 professor of mathematics in the University of Virginia. In 1861 he entered the Confederate service as colonel, but was soon made chief of the War Bureau and acting assistant secretary of war. In 1863 he went to England to collect material for his work on the Constitution. He next settled in Baltimore, and became editor of the Southern Review. In 1868 he became principal of the Louisa School, Baltimore, and in 1871 was ordained a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He died at Alexandria, Virginia, December 8, 1877. He published, An Examination of Edwards on the Will (1845): — A Theodicy, or Vindication of the Divine Glory (1853): — Is Davis a Traitor? or, Was Secession a Constitutional Right Previous to the War of 1861 (1866): — Philosophy of Mathematics (1866). See Appletons' Cyclop. of Amer. Biography.
