Hoffman

tary of War. His death, shortly after, followed
an operation for disease of the gall bladder. He
published numerous articles on matters relating
principally to medico-military administration,
and he is regarded as a pioneer in bringing med-
ical officers into military grace and favor. He
was married, June 22, 1875, to Lavinia Day,
daughter of Gen. Hannibal Day.

[Autobiog. notes (MS,), in Army Medic. Lib.;
Matmsell Van Rensselaer, Annals of the Van Rens-
selaers in the U. S. (1888) ; Who's Who in America,
igi&-i9; -^#. Surgeon, Feb. 1920; Jour, of the Am.
Medic. Asso.} Jan. 31, 1920; Evening Star, Washing-
ton, Jan. 15, 1920.] P.M. A.

HOFFMAN, CHARLES FENNO (Feb. 7,
i8o6-June 7, 1884), editor, poet, novelist, was
born in New York City, the son of Josiah Ogden
Hoffman [g.-z/.] and his second wife, Maria
Fenno. As a boy of eleven, he was injured in an
accident in which his right leg was so crushed
that it had to be amputated above the knee. At
fifteen he entered Columbia College, where he
studied for three years. His academic standing
was low, but in spite of his physical handicap he
was prominent in student activities. Leaving
without graduating, he went to Albany, studied
law with Harmanus Bleecker, and at the same
time contributed articles to the local papers. At
twenty-one he was admitted to the New York
bar. He continued to be interested in writing,
however, and after three years' practice of the
law in New York City, during which time he
sent anonymous contributions to the columns of
the New-York American, he definitely abandoned
the law and joined Charles King for a time in
the editorship of the American. On Jan. I, 1833,
he accepted the editorship of a new magazine, the
Knickerbocker (so spelled to accord with the
original Dutch), but he remained as editor only
a few months, for in October 1833 he left to tour
the northwestern country on horseback. To de-
fray the expenses of his trip, he wrote long let-
ters to the American descriptive of the country
and his experiences. On his return in June 1834,
he collected these letters and published them in
a two-volume book appearing simultaneously in
New York and London, entitled A Winter in the
West (1835).

In 1835 Hoffman became editor of the Amer-
ican Monthly Magazine, to which in the year
1837 he contributed rambling and incomplete
chapters of a romance, "Vanderlyn, or the For-
tunes of an Adventurer/* At the close of 1837 he
severed his connection with the magazine, and
his story came to an untimely end. He had
meanwhile, in the spring of 1837, undertaken the
editorship of the New-York Mirror, in which
appeared several articles under the heading,

Hoffman

"Scenes and Sources of the Hudson." Some of
these were later collected for publication in Wild
Scenes in the Forest and Prairie (London, 1839;
New York, 1843). In 1838 and 1839 Hoffman's
literary efforts were mainly concentrated on a
novel, Greyslaer: a Romance of the Mohawk,
published in 1839. The story was based on the
murder in 1828 by Colonel Beauchamp, of Ken-
tucky, of Colonel Sharp, who had seduced Beau-
champ's wife before their marriage. Two edi-
tions of the novel were exhausted in New York,
one in Philadelphia, and one in London, during
the first year, and on Aug. 3, 1840, a dramatiza-
tion of the story began a successful run at the
Bowery Theatre in New York.

For three months in 1840 Hoffman became
associate editor with Horace Greeley of the New-
Yorker, but he was seeking some position which
would assure him an adequate and regular in-
come, and on May 6,1841, he accepted a position
as third chief clerk in the office of the surveyor of
customs of the Port of New York at a thousand
dollars a year. On Jan. 26, 1843, he became dep-
uty surveyor at an increased salary and remained
until July 3, 1844, when his resignation was
forced by politics. These positions gave him time
for his literary work. In 1842 he collected his
verse into a volume, The Vigil of Faith, and
Other Poems, four editions of which were ex-
hausted in three years. This was followed in
1844 by The Echo: or Borrowed Notes for Home
Circulation, a second volume of poetry, and in
1847 by Love's Calendar, Lays of the Hudson
and Other Poems. Hoffman had been announced,
on Mar. 3, 1845, as a member of the editorial
staff of the new Evening Gazette. On May 8,
1847, he assumed the editorship of the Literary
World. He conducted the latter with marked
success but toward the end of 1848 his health
failed and in January 1849 he was being treated
by a specialist in mental disorders. A few months
later he was discharged as cured and accepted
appointment as clerk in the consular bureau of
the State Department, but before the close of the
year 1849 he was again forced to give up his
work. Admitted to the state hospital at Harris-
burg, Pa., he remained there for the rest of his
life, "his physical buoyancy not broken down,
living amid a great host of illusions; his mind
placid, but distraught" (Mitchell, post, p. 118).

Perhaps the best description of Hoffman is
that written by Edgar Allan Poe, who said of
him; "He is chivalric to a fault, enthusiastic,
frank without discourtesy, an ardent admirer of
the beautiful, a gentleman of the best school—a
gentleman by birth, by education, and by instinct;
His manners are graceful and winning in the ex-

HO