Alexander Hamilton Bowman
United States Military Academy Library.
Born	(1803-05-15)May 15, 1803 Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Died	November 11, 1865(1865-11-11) (aged 62) Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Allegiance	United States of America Union
Service/ branch	United States Army Union Army
Years of service	1825–1865
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel (Colonelex officio)
Unit	Corps of Engineers
Commands	USMASuperintendent
Battles / wars	American Civil War

Alexander Hamilton Bowman (May 15, 1803 – November 11, 1865) was anengineer, military educator, and career officer in theUnited States Army. Bowman supervised the erection ofCharleston Harbor defenses, includingFort Sumter,^[1] and served asSuperintendent of theUnited States Military Academy atWest Point, New York, during theAmerican Civil War.^[1]

Alexander H. Bowman was born on May 15, 1803, at Bowman's Hill inWilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the sixth child of farmer Samuel Bowman.^[2] One of seven brothers who participated in theAmerican Revolutionary War as soldiers in theContinental Army, the elder Bowman and a brother fought atLexington as two of the village's 48minutemen^[3] and asensign of the3rd Massachusetts Regiment of theContinental Line^[4] guarded thespyMajorJohn André awaiting his execution in 1780, walking him to the gallows.^[3] Samuel Bowman was later promoted to Lieutenant of the1st Regiment of theMassachusetts Line.^[5] One of his brothers was killed atMonmouth, but after 1786 Captain Samuel and several of his siblings moved to theWyoming Valley of northeast Pennsylvania.^[3]

Appointed to theUnited States Military Academy from his native state on June 1, 1821, Bowman proved an excellent student, graduating third in his class of 37,^[1] and was appointed to the corps of engineers in 1825.^[1]Second Lieutenant Bowman spent one year teaching at the academy as "Assistant Professor of History, Geography, and Ethics."^[1] BothJefferson Davis (Class of 1828) andRobert E. Lee (Class of 1829) attended the academy while Bowman was teaching there.

Bowman was engaged engineering improvements on the facilities and defenses ofGulf Coast harbors for nine years.^[1] He built the military road betweenMemphis, Tennessee andLittle Rock, Arkansas, then in 1835 Bowman was promoted toFirst Lieutenant of engineers, and married Marie Louise Colin, a native ofPensacola, Florida.^[2] After three years working in theTennessee andCumberland River systems, Bowman was again promoted.^[1]

In 1838, Captain Bowman began a long period supervising construction of thejetties and defenses of theharbor inCharleston, South Carolina. TheThird system island coastal fortificationFort Sumter, started in 1827, was continued by Bowman and his engineers.^[1] Bowman returned to the academy in 1851, taught applied engineering tofirst class cadets, and was "Commandant of Sappers, Miners, and Pontoniers."^[1] Captain Bowman returned to Charleston for a year, working on engineering projects inGeorgetown, South Carolina andSavannah, Georgia, before assignment in 1853 to Washington, D.C., superintending construction of the south wing extension of theU.S. Treasury Building.^[1]

On January 23, 1861, during Secession Winter and with war looming,CreoleP.G.T. Beauregard was offered the office of USMA Superintendent to replaceRichard Delafield. When Louisiana seceded from the Union on January 26, 1861, Beauregard's orders were revoked by the War Department, andMajor Bowman was assigned to replace him (colonelex officio). Delafield resumed the office in the brief period between Beauregard's and Bowman's commands.^[1]

As a career officer of theCorps of Engineers, Bowman served on many boards and commissions related to maritime improvements like lighthouses, river improvements and military defenses.^[1]

Bowman died at the home his father had built and he had expanded on Bowman's Hill in Wilkes-Barre, November 11, 1865.^[6] Bowman's widow, Marie Louise Bowman survived her husband and both her sons by many years, dying in the house at Bowman's Hill.^[2] Bowman had married Marie Louise Collins,^[7] daughter of Antoine Collins and Mary Pyburn in Pensacola, Florida, on February 19, 1835.^[8]

The couple had the following children:

1. Charles Stuart Bowman, born about 1837 and died in 1868.
2. Mary Ellen Bowman, born 1843.
3. Walter Bowman, born 1845 and died 1860–1865.
4. Eulalie Bowman, born 1846. She married James Hickman Rollins, a captain of the U.S. Army who died February 5, 1897, in St. Louis Missouri.
5. Louisa Bowman, born 1847 and died 1934 in Santa Barbara, California. She marriedElwell Stephen Otis, who was the second American Military Governor of the Philippines.
6. Eliza Chase Bowman, born Sept 9, 1851. She married Henry Corbit Odgen, a prominent Quaker who contributed his father's correspondence to the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College.[1]^[9]
7. Alexander H. Bowman Jr., born 1852 died 1870–1880 in Pennsylvania.

Charles Stuart Bowman was himself a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy in 1860.^[6] The younger Bowman mustered Kansas volunteer^[10] and Native American companies^[11] for the Union Army, commanded Fort Leavenworth for a time,^[12] and developed a reputation as an efficient cavalry officer, eventually becoming an inspector of cavalry for the War Department.^[6] Brevettedmajor for his actions commanding an independent detachment of the4th United States Cavalry at theBattle of Okolona during the Meridian expedition, Charles S. Bowman died on January 13, 1868, while in Texas commanding the cavalry detachment atCamp Verde, Texas.

Bowman's brother,Samuel Bowman, was a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

• Ambrose, Stephen E. (1999).Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point. JHU Press.ISBN 0-8018-6293-0.
• Cullum, George Washington (1891).Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy(PDF). 394. Vol. 1 (3rd ed.). Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin. pp. 9–10. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on January 10, 2009. RetrievedApril 12, 2009.
• Cullum, George Washington (1891).Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy(PDF). 1875. Vol. 2 (3rd ed.). Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin. p. 760. RetrievedApril 24, 2009.^{[permanent dead link‍]}
• Dougherty, Charles Bowman (1912).The Story of Bowman's Hill, Wilkes-Barre, Penna. Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: Raeder Press.ASIN B000894GRQ.
• Johnson, Frederick Charles, ed. (July 1889).The Historical Record. Vol. 3. Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania: Press of the Wilkes-Barre Record. pp. 111–112. RetrievedApril 17, 2009.
• Lee, Antoinette Josephine (2000).Architects to the Nation. Oxford University Press US.ISBN 0-19-512822-2.
• McDonald, Robert M.S. (2004).Thomas Jefferson's Military Academy. University of Virginia Press.ISBN 0-8139-2298-4.
• Metcalf, Bryce (1995).Original Members and Other Officers Eligible to the Society of the Cincinnati, 1783–1938. Beverly Hills, California: The Historic Trust, Eastwood Publishing Co. p. 59.ISBN 1-885943-03-2.
• U.S. War Department (1880–1901).The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

• 1803 births
• 1865 deaths
• People of Pennsylvania in the American Civil War
• United States Army colonels
• Union army officers
• Superintendents of the United States Military Academy
• United States Military Academy alumni
• People from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania

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