EMINENT AMERICANS: COMPRISING BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES OF THREE HUNDRED AND BY BENSON J. LOSSING, AUTHOR OF "HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES," "PICTORIAL FIELD-BOOK OF ILLUSTRATED WITH OVER 100 FINE PORTRAITS BY LOSSING AND BARRITT. NEW YORK: MASON BROTHERS 108 & 110 DUANE STREET. 1857. US 42505.80 HARVARD Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by MASON BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. DEZ / Reorite Chr ELECTROTYPED BY THOMAS B. SMITH, 82 & 84 Beekman Street. PRINTED BY C. A. ALVORD, 15 Vandewater St. PREFACE. "Lives of great men all remind us BIOGRAPHY is History teaching by example. It is the basis of all historical structures. The Chronicles of the nations are composed of the sayings and doings of their men and women. These make up the sum of IIistory. Sallust says, "I have often heard that Quintus Maximus, Publius Scipio, and other renowned persons of the Roman Commonwealth, used to say that, whenever they beheld the images of their ancestors, they felt their minds vehemently excited to virtue. It could not be the wax, nor the marble, that possessed this power; but the recollections of their great actions kindled a generous flame in their breasts, which could not be quelled till they, also, by Virtue, had acquired equal fame and glory." It is with the earnest desire of producing precisely such effects upon the minds and hearts of the young people of our country, that this volume has been prepared—that these images have been set up. The Roman youth were excited to great, and generous, and virtuous deeds, by the sight of material objects and the voices of Orators. Our youth have their aspirations for noble |