Marcus F. Wright's Civil War Bios -  General John A. Dix

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                                    DIX
   p.136 d
   DIX, GENERAL JOHN A., born in Boscawen, N. H., July 24, 1798; died in
   New York city, August 21, 1879. His early education was received at
   Salisbury, Phillips Exeter Academy, and the College of Montreal. In
   December, 1812, he was appointed cadet, and going to Baltimore, aided
   his father, Major Timothy Dix, of the Fourteenth United States
   Infantry, and also studied at St. Mary's College. He was made ensign
   in 1813, and accompanied his regiment, taking part in the operations
   on the Canadian frontier. Subsequently he served in the Twenty-first
   Infantry at Fort Constitution, N. H., where he became second
   lieutenant in March, 1814; was adjutant to Colonel John De B. Walback,
   and in August was transferred to the Third Artillery. In 1819 he was
   appointed aide-de-camp to General Jacob Brown, then in command of the
   Northern Military Department, and stationed at Brownsville, where he
   studied law, and later, under the guidance of William West, was
   admitted to the bar in Washington. He was, in 1826, sent as special
   messenger to the Court of Denmark. On his return he was stationed at
   Fort Monroe, but continued ill-health led him to resign his commission
   in the army, July 29, 1828, after having attained the rank of captain;
   he then settled in Cooperstown, N. Y. and began the practice of law.
   Between 1830 and 1856, Captain dix served as Adjutant General of the
   State, Secretary of State, Member of the Assembly, and Assistant
   Treasurer of New York. In May, 1860, he was appointed Postmaster of
   New York, after the defalcations in the office. On January 10, 1861,
   he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Buchanan, and
   he held that office until the close of the administration. His
   appointment immediately relieved the government from a financial
   deadlock; and gave it the funds that it needed, but had failed to
   obtain, and produced a general confidence in its stability. When he
   took the office there were two revenue cutters in New Orleans, and he
   ordered them to New York. The captain of one of them, after consulting
   with the Collector at New Orleans, refused to obey. Secretary Dix
   thereupon telegraphed: "Tell Lieutenant Caldwell to arrest Captain
   Breshwood, assume command of the cutter, and obey the order I gave
   through you. If Captain Breshwood, after arrest, undertakes to
   interfere with the command of the cutter, tell Lieutenant Caldwell to
   consider him as a mutineer, and treat him accordingly. If anyone
   attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot." At
   the beginning of the Civil War he took an active part in the formation
   of the Union Defense Committee, and was its first president. On
   President Lincoln's first call for troops, he immediately organized
   and sent to the field seventeen regiments, and was appointed one of
   the four major generals to command the New York State forces. In June
   he was commissioned major general of volunteers, and ordered to
   Washington by General Scott, to take command of the Arlington and
   Alexandria Department. By a successful political intrigue this
   disposition was changed, and he was sent in July to Baltimore to take
   command of the Department of Maryland, which was considered a post of
   small comparative importance. But on the defeat of the Federal forces
   at Bull Run, things changed; Maryland became for the time the centre
   and key of the national position, and it was through General Dix's
   energetic and judicious measures that the State and the city were
   prevented from going over to the Confederate cause. In May, 1862,
   General Dix was sent from Baltimore to Fort Monroe, and in the summer
   of 1863, after the trouble connected with the draft riots, he
   transferred to New York as commander of the Department of the East,
   which place he held until the close of the war.