776 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS (1835-1915) 



Fellow in Class III, Section 3, 1871. 



Charles Francis Adams, of famous ancestry, was born in Boston, 

 May 27, 1835, the second son of Charles Francis and Abigail Brown 

 (Brooks) Adams. Of his early education and associations he has said 

 much in his " Autobiography," but heredity counted for much in his 

 characteristics. He had a clear recollection of his grandfather, John 

 Quincy Adams, then engrossed by his contest for freedom, and he had 

 inherited a questioning spirit which placed him in opposition to the 

 social and political conventions of the day. Passing through a private 

 school at Hinghara and the Boston Latin School he entered Harvard 

 College and pursued the usual course of studies without indication of 

 possessing unusual aptitude or a special bent in any one direction. 

 On graduating in 1856 he entered the law office of Dana and Parker. 

 The personal relations with two such men exerted a strong influence 

 upon the young Adams, to whom law could never be a serious profes- 

 sion any more than it was to his grandfather; but the writings of the 

 English scientists and the speculations of Spencer were an even stronger 

 influence, encouraging his tendency to question existing conditions 

 and to test the strength of the economic and political structure on 

 which the democratic community rested. 



The war of secession interrupted this training in the law, though Mr. 

 Adams did not at first consider military service as necessary. His 

 father had been appointed United States Minister to the Court of St. 

 James and his son was in charge of his business at home. A younger 

 brother, Henry, accompanied his father to London to be his private 

 secretary, and on Charles rested the management of the family aflfairs. 

 The call, however, became too strong to be resisted, and in December, 



1861, he received a commission as First Lieutenant in the First Massa- 

 chusetts Cavalry. His service exercised a lasting influence upon his 

 career, for it later engaged him in a series of studies upon the war 

 which placed him high among critics of military strategy, and which 

 yielded rich return in the connected field of the diplomacy of the period. 

 Serving in South Carolina aiid Virginia, he became Captain in October, 



1862, was chief of squadron through the campaign of Gettysburg and 

 in the advance upon Richmond, and in the autumn of 1864 was 

 transferred as Lieutenant-Colonel to the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry 



