William Schouler (December 31, 1814 – October 24, 1872) was a Scottish-born American journalist, politician and Adjutant General of Massachusetts during the American Civil War.
Early life Schouler was born on December 31, 1814, in Kilbarchan. He immigrated to the United States as a young child. His father had set up a silk print-works establishment on Staten Island and later established a similar business in Arlington, Massachusetts, where Schouler spent most of his childhood.
Journalism and politician In 1842, Schouler became the owner and editor of the Lowell Courier for the next six years. From 1844 to 1847 he served a Whig member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from Lowell.Ellen Mudge Burrell, The State House: Boston, Massachusetts (Boston, 1905), p. 96. In 1845, Schouler headed a commission that investigated mill conditions in Lowell and recommended against a proposal to shorten the work day to ten hours.David R. Roediger and Philip Sheldon Foner, On Our Own Time: A History of American Labor and the Working Day (1989), p. 56 The uproar over Schouler's position, led in part by women mill workers in Lowell, contributed to his defeat in the fall 1846 election..
Schouler moved to Boston in 1847, where he became editor and part-owner of the Boston Atlas. In 1848 he was elected to the state legislature as a Whig member from Boston, serving from 1849 to 1852.Burrell, The State House, p. 96. He was also a delegate in the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1853, where he helped lead the opposition to the proposed new state constitution. In the course of the debate, he expressed the view that corporations were merely devices for people to avoid paying debts.Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (1970), pp. 22-23.
Later in 1853, Schouler moved to Ohio. He became the editor for the Cincinnati Gazette and in 1856 the Ohio State Journal, where he was active in the early organization of the Ohio Republican Party.William E. Gienapp, The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 113-116, 242. In March 1858 he was appointed Adjutant General of Ohio by Governor Salmon P. Chase.New York Times, March 22, 1858.
Military, politics and later life In 1858, Schouler moved back to Boston to serve as editor of the Boston Atlas and Bee.Augusta, Me. Kennebec Journal, May 28, 1858. In 1860 Governor Nathaniel Banks appointed him Adjutant General of Massachusetts.Boston Evening Transcript, March 13, 1860. In 1861, a Massachusetts militia training camp was named for him, but later renamed for Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.
In 1864, Schouler brought attention to Lydia Bixby, a Boston widow who lost several sons in the war; this led Abraham Lincoln to write a moving letter of condolence to her. He remained Adjutant General throughout all of the U.S. Civil War until 1867.
Schouler later served one term in the Massachusetts State Senate. He also wrote the two volume History of Massachusetts in the Civil War.
Schouler died on October 24, 1872, aged 57, at his home in Jamaica Plain.
See also 89th Massachusetts General Court (1868)
References
External links
Historical Digression account of William Schouler in the Civil War New England Historical Society account of Schouler's conflict with Sarah Bagley over mill conditions
History of Massachusetts in the Civil War Vol. I at Internet Archive