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SOURCE: History of Genesee County, Michigan
        pub. Everts and Abbott - 1879

        Page 179


                          GEN. M. D. McALESTER

  Miles D. McAlester was born March 21, 1833, at Belfast, Allegany Co.,
N.Y., and moved thence in 1836, with his parents, to Flint, Mich., where he
resided at the time of his appointment to the Military Academy at West
Point, in 1852.  He graduated third in his class, and was made brevet
second lieutenant, July 1, 1856.  On the 1st of December in that year he
was promoted to second lieutenant in the corps of engineers, and
subsequently served as assistant engineer at Fort Taylor, Fla., to the
Board of Engineers for Atlantic Coast Defenses, and on Fortifications in
New York Harbor.  In 1859 he was promoted to the charge, as superintending
engineer, of the defenses of the city of New York and in 1861, of the
repairs at For Mifflin, Pa.

  In the early part of the great Rebellion, having just received his
promotion as first lieutenant, he served with distinction in the Army of
the Potomac, first as assistant engineer on the defenses of Washington,
then as chief engineer of the 3d Corps in the Peninsula, directing the
construction of field-works, and taking part in the battles of
Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, and Malvern Hill; and for meritorious services in
this campaign received the brevets of major and lieutenant-colonel, July
1, 1862.

  He served with the same army in the Maryland campaign of 1862, and was in
the battles of South Mountain and Antietam; and at the close of the
campaign was transferred to the Department of the Ohio as its chief
engineer, and remained in that duty till August, 1863, during which time he
was promoted to the grade of captain of engineers.  A short respite from
his arduous duties in the field was afforded him, by his detail as
instructor of practical military engineering, and principal assistant
professor of engineering at West Point, in the fall of 1863; but the
exigencies of the campaign of 1864 made his services again necessary to the
army, and in June of that year he was ordered into the field in the
Southwest, where he served as chief engineer of the Military Division of
West Mississippi from July 15, 1864, to July 16, 1865, and from that time
as chief engineer of the Department of Louisiana, being engaged in the
sieges and capture of Forts Gaines and Morgan, and Spanish Fort, and also
in the storming of Blakely, all in the Mobile campaign; and for his gallant
and meritorious services in these operations he received the brevets of
colonel and brigadier-general, United States army.  After the close of the
war, Dec. 23, 1865, he was made superintending engineer of the construction
of defenses of Ship Island, Miss., and New Orleans, and March 13, 1866,
received, in addition, charge of the defenses of Mobile and Pensacola, and
of improvements of the mouths of the Mississippi.  May 22, 1867, he was
appointed engineer of the Eighth Light-House District, and during the same
year was superintending engineer of the survey of Bayou Manchac and the
Amtie River, with view to the forming of first-class steamboat navigation
between the Mississippi River and the Mississippi Sound.  And in 1867 and
'68 he superintended the survey of Galveston harbor, with view to its
improvement.

  Gen. McAlester was married at Wilkes Barre, Pa., Oct. 15, 1868, to Miss
Louisa Bowman, daughter of Col. Bowman, formerly superintendent of the
Military Academy at West Point.  Shortly after his marriage he was assigned
(Jan. 1, 1869) to duty as superintending engineer of Lake Ontario harbor
works, and the modification and completion of Forts Ontario and Niagara,
taking station at Buffalo, N.Y., and was also appointed engineer of the
Tenth Light-House District; but before he had fairly entered on his new
field of duty he was attacked with dysentery, which afterwards changed to
intermittent typhoid fever, and finally, worn out by recurrence of combined
attacks of both disorders, and completely exhausted by the unequal
conflict, he passed calmly away, in the morning of April 23, 1869.  His
remains were interred at Wilkes Barre, Pa.  The "Army and Navy Journal", in
noticing the death of Gen. McAlester, said, "His record speaks for itself,
and renders unnecessary further comment on the great loss which the army,
and especially his own corps has sustained."

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