Hitchcock

fantry, of which he was made lieutenant-colonel
in January 1842, became under his guidance one
of the crack regiments of the army and the first
since the War of 1812 to practise the evolution of
the line. Transferred to Jefferson Barracks, St.
Louis, in 1843, and to the Louisiana frontier in
1844, his regiment became a part of General Tay-
lor's army of occupation in 1845. After leave of
absence on account of ill health, he returned in
time for the Mexican War. A reconciliation with
General Scott was followed by his appointment
as inspector-general on the latter's staff. At the
close of the war he was promoted colonel and
given command of the Military Division of the
Pacific. Stationed in San Francisco, he broke
up Walker's filibustering expedition into Mexico
by his seizure of the brig Arrow. This act
brought upon him the hostility of Secretary
Davis, who refused Hitchcock's application for
four months' leave of absence because of re-
newed ill health. Hitchcock thereupon resigned
from the army, Oct. 18, 1855.

The outbreak of the Civil War found him liv-
ing in St. Louis. He at once went to Washing-
ton to offer his services to the Federal govern-
ment, and after vexatious delays was appointed,
through the influence of General Scott, major-
general of volunteers. He rendered efficient aid
to the War Department, becoming commissioner
for exchange of prisoners of war on Nov. 15,
1862, and commissary general of prisoners of
war on Nov. 3,1865. His labors were not ended
until Oct. i, 1867, when he was among the last
volunteers to be mustered out. In 1868 he mar-
ried Martha Rind Nicholls of Washington, D. C
After the War he resided in the South for the
sake of his health, living first in Charleston, S.
C, and then in Sparta, Ga., whither he moved
shortly before his death.

Hitchock's first book, The Doctrines of Spi-
noza and Swedenborg Identified (1846) pointed
out numerous hitherto unnoticed parallels in the
philosophy of the two but somewhat overstressed
their importance. In Remarks upon Alchemy
and the Alchemists (1857) he endeavored to
prove that the leading alchemists were members
of a vast secret society devoted to symbolic pres-
entation of a liberal pantheistic philosophy under
the disguise of other interests. In this society he
enrolled the writers of the Gospels in Christ the
Spirit (1851); Swedenborg in Swedenborg a
Hermetic Philosopher (1858); Shakespeare in
Remarks on the Sonnets (1865, 2nd ed, en-
larged, 1867); Spenser, Sidney, Drayton, and
Carew in Spenser's Poem Entitled Colin Clouts
Come Home Againe Explained (1865); Dante
in Notes on the Vita Nuova (1866). All these

Hitchcock

laborious efforts are today only literary curi-
osities, while Hitchcock's one really valuable
literary work, his vivid autobiographical Fifty
Years in Camp and Field (1909), he left unpub-
lished.

[E. A. Hitchcock, Fifty Years in Camp and Field
(1909), ed. with biographical notes by W. A. Croffut;
E. A. Hitchcock, A Traveler in Indian Territory
(1930); G. W. Cullum, Biog. Reg. Officers and Grads.
U. S. Mil. Acad. (srd ed., 1891) ; The Asso. of Grads.
of the U. S. Mil Acad.t Ann. Reunion, 1871; M. L. J.
Hitchcock, The Geneal. of the Hitchcock Family
(i894)J E.S.B—s.

HITCHCOCK, ETHAN ALLEN (Sept. 19,
i83S-Apr. 9,1909), secretary of the interior, was
the son of Henry and Anne (Erwin) Hitchcock,
and brother of Henry Hitchcock [q.v.]. He was
born in Mobile, Ala., and, following the financial
difficulties and sudden death of his father after
the panic of 1837, was taken by his mother to
Nashville, Tenn. There he received his early
education, which was supplemented by study at
an academy at New Haven, Conn. In the late
fifties he joined his brother Henry in St. Louis.
In 1860 he went to China, entering the commis-
sion business of Olyphant & Company at Hong
Kong; he became a partner in 1866, and retired
six years later, having amassed a fortune. He
had married, Mar. 22,1869, Margaret D. Collier
of St. Louis, whose sister was the wife of his
brother Henry.

Following several years of travel, Hitchcock
returned to St. Louis, where from 1874 to 1897
his career was that of a successful man of affairs
in a period of capitalistic enterprise and expan-
sion. He established near St. Louis the first suc-
cessful American plate-glass manufactory; he
had extensive interests in iron and steel, and was
a director in other corporations. By tempera-
ment and by conviction a Republican, he con-
tributed to the party campaign funds. During
the framing of the tariff of 1890 he assisted in
the preparation of the glass schedule, at the re-
quest of McKinley, with whom he formed a
friendship. In 1897, the President appointed
him minister to Russia, with the object of utiliz-
ing his experience in advancing the interests of
American trade. His creditable service in the
diplomatic field was terminated in December
1898, when he was named secretary of the in-
terior.

It was his fortune to occupy the secretaryship
for a longer period than any of his predecessors
and to be a leader in the conservation movement.
Early in 1903, convinced that the government
was being systematically robbed of valuable
lands and other natural resources, he dismissed
the commissioner of the General Land Office and

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