John Bigelow, Jr.

Photo courtesy of Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

John Bigelow, Jr. wrote several books of nonfiction, including Breaches of Anglo/American Treaties (1917), World Peace (1915), Retrospections of an Active Life (1913), The Campaign of Chancellorsville (1910); Reminiscences of the Santiago Campaign (1899), Principles of Strategy (1894), and Mars-la-Tour and Gravelotte (1884).

He also wrote extensively for magazines, including several pieces on the U.S. Army campaign against the Apaches for Outing. Bigelow rose in the ranks of the U.S. Army from First Lieutenant to Adjutant General, retiring after 30 years of service. He subsequently taught French at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Military Science at Rutgers College before retiring to DC.

According to his obituary in the New York Times, printed on March 1, 1936, Bigelow was an “expert strategist and tactician, Spanish war veteran, geographer, author, college professor and descendant of a family distinguished in American history…His father was John Bigelow, United States Ambassador to France under President Abraham Lincoln, and his mother, the former Jane Tunis Poultney, a social leader of her day.” Bigelow was wounded during the Battle of San Juan in 1898. He married and was father to four children.