GENERAL JOHN G. FOSTER.

General John G. Foster was born at Whitefield, Coos County, New Hampshire, on the 27th of May, 1823. When ten years old he removed to Nashua, where he attended the public schools. He also attended the Baptist High School at Hancock, New Hampshire, and subsequently fitted for entering into West Point Military Academy, at Crosby's High School, Nashua. At the request of Hon. Charles G. Atherton, then a representative in Congress from New Hampshire, and Franklin Pierce, then United States Senator, in 1842, he was appointed cadet at West Point, and entered in June of that year. He graduated at that institution, ranking number four in the class, in 1846, with Generals McClellan, Reno, Couch, Seymour, Sturgis, Stoneman, Oakes and Gordon, of the Union army, and Jackson and Wilcox, of the rebel army. He was in the Mexican war, and in 1847 was brevetted first lieutenant, "for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battles of Contreras and Cherubusco." At the storming of El Molino del Rey he fell severely wounded. For his gallantry here he was brevetted captain. In 1854 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Engineering at West Point. He was second in command at Fort Sumter when it was first fired upon by the rebels, from Charleston, in April, 1861, and for the heroism he displayed on this occasion he was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteers.

General Foster accompanied General Burnside's expedition into North Carolina, bore a conspicuous part in the battle at Roanoke Island, the capture of Newbern, and received the unconditional surrender of all the batteries, all the defenses, and all the troops-over two thousand-upon the island, in February, 1862. In July he was left in command of the department

of North Carolina, with a force barely sufficient to hold the positions left him by General Burnside, who had been ordered with the main part of his force, to Fortress Monroe. Late in the autumn he was considerably reenforced by new regiments from Massachusetts, when he resolved to assume the offensive. He led an expedition from Washington through Williamston to Hamilton, on the Roanoke, where he expected to find and destroy some iron-clads in process of construction; but there were none. The result of the expedition was the liberation of several hundred slaves. In April, 1863, the rebel General Hill made an attack on Washington, N. C., and was handsomely defeated by General Foster. In October he succeeded General Burnside in East Tennessee. All through the war General Foster occupied responsible positions, and was regarded as one of the most accomplished, brave and prudent officers in the army.

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