[Continued from Part 1 of this blog]

The New-York Observer honored William Henry Browne after he was wounded at the Battle of Salem Church, Virginia, writing, “Even if crippled for life, he glories in his sacrifices for the Union, and the honor of the national flag.”¹

Minié balls were among the deadliest weapons on the Civil War battlefields. These bullet wounds accounted for a high percentage of amputations in Civil War hospitals. Months of recovery followed the fighting at Salem Heights for William Henry, but he was unusually lucky to survive the ordeal, when so many soldiers lost a limb through amputation, or died from infection and gangrene in the wound.

The 36th Regiment of New York Volunteers was mustered out at the end of June, 1863, and the regiment returned to New York. Thus, they just missed combat at Gettysburg in early July but were on hand for the draft riots in New York City and Brooklyn that took place a week later. Some members of the regiment helped to restore order during the riots, in which more than a hundred people died; Black Americans were especially targeted.

William Henry spent several months in convalescence. Although he was eager to continue in combat, the military placed him instead in the Volunteer Reserve Corps, owing to the disabling injury that had shattered his left knee. During his recovery, he posed for a photograph. We can imagine the Browne parents pleading with their convalescent son to sit for a photographer after his close escape from death.

The handsome man wears a suitcoat in high style in 1863 or ’64, featuring a distinctive diagonal closure at the top of the coat, as shown in a contemporary fashion magazine illustration.²

The patterned wallpaper at the studio contrasts with Browne’s decorous, dark outfit. He presents himself in a formal pose, standing rather than sitting, using a hand on the edge of a chair or couch to steady himself. This studio furnishing offered support for his wounded left leg during the extended exposure time required for photographic processes of that era. The long pose required for a daguerreotype would have been difficult to maintain for a man recovering from such a serious leg injury. The damage to his knee probably meant at least a limp and some difficulty in walking for the remainder of his life.

William Henry’s photo belongs to the files of members of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS). The MOLLUS collection contains portraits of hundreds of high Union officers and military photographs from the Civil War. Only a few individuals are pictured out of uniform, William Henry Browne among them. His entire regiment has been mustered out of service in June; thus, Browne was out of uniform when the daguerreotype was made during his convalescence.

Return to Service

In December, 1863, William Henry volunteered to serve in the Veteran Reserve Corps (V. R. C.). He was accepted for duty and appointed as assistant provost marshal for Maryland and Delaware. The duties included recruiting men for the army and settling matters in court martials. William Henry was promoted to brigadier general by brevet in March 1865, and he continued to serve as a military official in Baltimore until July 1866, more than a year after General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.³

Augusta Browne Garrett and her parents did not hesitate to join William Henry in Baltimore. By April 1865, they had sold their house in Brooklyn and left New York City for good. In their new location, Augusta carried on writing and publishing prose, as well as publishing new sheet music in New York and Cleveland.

William Henry opened a law office in Baltimore after he left military service in 1866. He and his older brother, Louis Henry Browne, applied for military pensions; both were rejected for reasons of technicalities (they had not asserted their disabling injuries at the time of mustering out). William Henry successfully appealed with documentation of his leg injury and was awarded a small monthly pension.

The Nation’s Capital

 David Browne passed away in July 1867. A year later, William Henry received a position as second assistant examiner in the U.S. Patent Office. With his sister, mother, and their longtime housekeeper, Sarah Morrow, William Henry moved to Washington, DC. They settled into a house on Third Street NW, near the U.S. Capitol, and soon entered the cultural life of the city.

William Henry Browne was an amateur singer who enjoyed singing bass in church choirs and Männerchor ensembles.⁴ He helped organize the National Veteran Glee Club in Washington, DC, comprised of Union veterans of the Civil War. He also sang for years in the Choral Society of Washington and the Philharmonic Society. Augusta Browne Garrett grew active in the local Episcopalian church community. For a time, she served as organist at Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church, located at Third and C Streets.

On Easter morning, April 9, 1871, the music included several of Augusta’s choral numbers, as shown in the notice published in the Daily Chronicle on Saturday, April 8, 1871, and the coverage in the Evening Star, also on April 8. William Henry (Gen. Browne) was listed as a second bass in the mixed chorus of men’s and women’s voices.

Augusta never repeated such an ambitious program at Trinity, nor did she remain long as its organist and choir director. With her mother in advanced years and needing more care and attention, Augusta may have preferred a more flexible role, perhaps playing as a substitute organist from time to time. Elizabeth Browne died in 1875; her death certificate stated the cause as paralysis, suggesting she may have suffered debilitating strokes and needed extensive assistance from caregivers.

A Legal Specialty

In Washington, William Henry completed and published his tome on the new field of trademark law in 1873. His pioneering, six-hundred-page volume, A Treatise of the Trade-Marks and Analogous Subjects, (Firm-names, Business-signs, Good-will, Labels, &c.), remained the leading publication on this legal topic into the twentieth century and went through several editions.

Up to this time, he wrote in the preface, “A comprehensive collation of authorities upon the Law of Trade-Marks, with a clear enunciation of the settled principles which govern it, is not to be found in any language.” In this work, William Henry established, “a statement of the foundation of title to a Trade-mark; by whom, and how, the same may be acquired; the characteristics that entitle it to protection; what is deemed a violation of the right; the remedies, preventive, renumerative, vindicatory, and the practice and forms.” He also traced the history of writings on the law of trademarks in England and Europe, as well as the U.S., in order to “bring order out of Chaos, and reduce the and practice to well-defined rules, based upon adjudicated cases.”⁵

Augusta likely spent hours reading and editing the drafts of the chapters. Judging by a lull in her own publications between 1870 and 1872, the legal study was a major pursuit for them both for several years. William Henry’s book solidified the legal standing of business trademarks as aspects of personal intellectual property that had hardly been considered prior to his advocacy. He argued that “a trade-mark is nothing more nor less than one’s commercial signature to his goods,” and counterfeiting a trademark was as wrong as forging another’s name on a document.⁶

After its publication, William Henry resigned from the U.S. Patent Office and resumed private practice as an expert witness in trademark cases. He was especially sought out by manufacturers of medicines and smoking products to protect their products from imitators. His legal specialty resulted in a comfortable income that permitted more time for other pursuits than a nine-to-five office job, such as choral singing, songwriting, and participation in the veterans’ groups and masonic organizations that William Henry enjoyed. These men’s associations offered interactions with high-ranking Union officers, well-placed government officials, and Washington politicians.

Election of 1876

William Henry revived his earlier interest in Republican party politics amidst his professional, military, and government colleagues. The Grant administration had been rife with scandals among government officials. Public outrage against these abuses resulted in the nomination of a squeaky-clean candidate for the Republican party in the 1876 election: Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, with his running mate, Congressman William Wheeler, against the Democrat nominees, Governor Samuel Tilden of New York and Governor Thomas Hendricks of Indiana. Hayes had a sterling record of military and government service. He was familiar to William Henry, probably an acquaintance from the military or masonic ties.

The Republican campaign for Hayes lit a fire under William Henry, and he drew in Augusta as well. The brother and sister worked on songs and lyrics for seventeen numbers in the Hayes & Wheeler Song Book.

Both together and individually, the two composed new songs, arranged existing music, wrote words for each other’s songs, and added political lyrics to older, traditional tunes. Augusta’s involvement in the 1876 election was extraordinary, since women could not vote, and she rarely voiced political opinions in her journalism. Despite lacking suffrage, Augusta participated vigorously in the democratic electoral process through music.

After the election of Hayes was confirmed in 1877, following a difficult electoral process, William Henry and Augusta wrote letters of congratulations to the new president and first lady.

On May 9, William Henry called at the White House, according to the list of visitors recorded in the Evening Star. Augusta may have accompanied him, but the selected names of callers included only senators, representatives, a governor, and General Browne.

The Hayes & Wheeler Song Book undoubtedly was the peak of their songwriting collaboration, but Augusta and William Henry worked together on at least one published song, “Who has not a Ship at Sea” (1879), as well as music for Samuel Morse’s funeral at the U.S. Capitol in 1872.

Another activity for the Browne siblings was Sunday School teaching in Episcopal churches. An obituary in the [Washington DC] Times specified that William Henry taught a large men’s Bible class at the Church of the Epiphany, 13th and G Streets NW. Epiphany was a large congregation within the Episcopal diocese of Maryland, and the location was close to the K Street home that the brother and sister built in 1877. Augusta presented “Hints for a Sunday-School” at a meeting of the Washington DC Sunday-School Association held at Epiphany. Her essay of hints on music and readings for children at church schools was published in 1879 in Frank Leslie’s Sunday Magazine. Augusta may have assisted with music at Epiphany in the Sunday-School and other functions, but the longstanding organist of the church was Katherine Quail Pearson.

Life Course

Augusta’s sudden death from a pulmonary embolism on January 11, 1882, came as a shock to her brother. William Henry wrote to Lucretia Garfield, widow of President James A. Garfield, that just that morning his sister had talked happily about sending a letter and music to Mrs. Garfield. Augusta’s hymn, “Day of Judgment, Day of Wonders,” was dedicated to the late president, who had died on September 19, 1881, from infection caused by an assassin’s bullet in July 1881. The hymn, her final published composition, served as her own musical memorial, as well as Garfield’s. After a funeral held in their home on K Street on January 13, 1882, Augusta was interred in the family plot in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

William Henry found himself bereft of family. Always a sociable man who enjoyed company, he experienced loneliness and grief from the loss of his sister. But he was not without personal charm and resources. On July 19, 1882, William Henry married Louise E. Turner of Staten Island, New York, the daughter of a prominent Union colonel. It was the first marriage for both. Although Louise was quite a bit younger than the fifty-seven-year-old lawyer, there were no children, and she died within five years.

A year and a half later, William Henry married again on November 15, 1888, to Louise W. Knowlton, a resident of Washington, D.C. Together, they enjoyed more than a decade of travel and social occasions. Louise’s sister was married to the superintendent of Mount Vernon, Harrison Dodge, and was raising a family of daughters. William Henry had a whole new family circle with these relatives.

Louise Knowlton Browne engaged in social climbing around Washington. Her brother-in-law’s connection to Mount Vernon provided an immediate cachet. When the Daughters of the American Revolution was established in 1890, Louise was part of the organization from the start. She was also a prominent member of the Washington Club, a women’s club that aspired to provide a literary and intellectual home for its members, and she belonged to the Society of Colonial Dames.

William Henry’s status as “General Browne” added to her prestige. He continued to represent commercial clients—such as the Singer Sewing Machine Company—in trademark cases before courts, including the Supreme Court. The couple took pleasure in their years together. In 1895, they traveled to St. John, New Brunswick, where William Henry had been born. He would have had no early memories of his original hometown, having left before he was a year old, but curiosity prevailed. General and Mrs. Browne liked to vacation in the Finger Lakes region of New York State to escape the hot and humid Washington summers.

In 1897, William Henry Browne was included in Men of the Century: An historical work giving portraits and sketches of eminent citizens of the United States.⁷ He prepared an updated edition of his landmark legal study in 1898. But his old injury continued to plague him, as well as cumulative health problems. While staying in Charlestown, West Virginia, William Henry died on September 15, 1900, age seventy-five. St. John’s Episcopal Church, the so-called “President’s Church,” held the funeral before his burial at Arlington National Cemetery, with volleys of gunfire and taps played by the bugler. The Washington Post reported that “many floral tributes bore evidence of the esteem in which the old hero was held, and all the societies with which was associated were represented.⁸

Louise Knowlton Browne donated some of William Henry’s military artifacts from the Mexican War to the National Museum (now the Smithsonian). The items included guns, swords, and relics. One of the swords had been captured from a Mexican officer during the War with Mexico; another was Browne’s Civil War sword.

Mrs. Browne ordered an impressive granite cross that was placed on his gravesite in Arlington National Cemetery in 1902. The Evening Star described “the simple decoration of the 6^th Army Corps badge on its front face, while on the other side appear in bas relief a Mexican dragoon sword and civil war saber crossed.”⁹ The tall stone monument paid homage to the long-serving soldier with respect and elegant austerity. The ceremony for the unveiling of the new gravestone began with “a vocal number [performed] by the Masonic choir.” The gesture was a fitting reference to the Browne family’s devotion to music and William Henry’s lifelong love of choral singing.

1. “Col. Browne of the N.Y. 36^th,” New-York Observer (May 21, 1863), p. 8. ↩︎
2. “Wm. H. [Henry] Browne, Col., 24th V. R. C. – Bvt. Brig. Gen.,” MOLLUS-Mass Civil War Photograph Collection Volume 85, United States Army Heritage and Education Center, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A similar ensemble from the London Gazette of Fashion is shown in R. L. Shep, Civil War Gentlemen: 1860s Apparel Arts & Uniforms (Mendocino, CA: R.L. Shep, 1994), 134. An oil portrait of Wm. Henry Browne was shown at the National Academy of Design in New York City in 1857. The portrait, painted by Augusta’s husband, John Walter Benjamin Garrett, was retained by the Browne family and has long since disappeared. ↩︎
3. Brevet can mean a temporary promotion to a higher rank in times of need, as on the battlefield. Another sense of the word is a commission raising a military officer in rank without going through customary protocol. The promotion may be honorary, without additional pay for the higher rank. Many Union officers received promotions by brevet, like William Henry Browne, during the final months of the Civil War. ↩︎
4. Männerchor wereGerman all-male choruses popular in many American cities in the second half of the nineteenth century. The ensembles performed in concerts, events, and competitions. German immigrants brought the male choral tradition to the US, especially following the 1848 revolution that destabilized much of Europe. ↩︎
5. William Henry Browne, A Treatise of the Trade-Marks and Analogous Subjects (Boston: Little, Browne, 1873), v, ix, and vi. A brief discussion about his father’s mentor, J. B. Logier, was included on p. 464, regarding the patented “chiroplast” that Logier invented (“an instrument for guiding the hands of learners on the piano-forte”). This newly-coined word would have warranted a trademark, in addition to a patent for its design. ↩︎
6. Browne, Treatise, 87. ↩︎
7. Charles Morris, ed. Men of the Century, an Historical Work: Giving Portraits And Sketches of Eminent Citizens of the United States (Philadelphia: I. R. Hamersly & co., 1896), p. 210. ↩︎
8. “Funeral of Gen. W. H. Browne,” Washington Post (Sept. 19, 1900), p. 7. William Henry Browne is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Section 1, Grave 435. ↩︎
9. “A Memorial Cross,” Evening Star (June 7, 1902), 16. Louise Browne died in 1904, but she was not buried alongside her husband. She was laid to rest in Oak Hill Cemetery in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C., near some of her own family and many of the Dodge clan. ↩︎