The Fay Family: Letters of Heman Allen Fay
   
THE FAY FAMILY HOMEPAGE

GENEALOGIES
   
From the Cullum File of Heman Allen Fay

August 2, 1855
Contributed by
Susan Fay McGinn
Mary McGinn Vickers

transcribed and annotated by Linda Fay Kaufman
   
Heman Allen's page
Bennington and Vermont Directory
lines, lists and links
   
   
Albany Aug. 2.1855
   
Dear Sir,
I received a day or two since, your Circular (list of Graduates from W. P. Academy,) with a request to know of a certain publication of mine, to which request I now reply.
From the commencement to the end of the War with Great Britain, I kept an account of each action, taken from the Official acount as given by the Officer in Command, whether by Sea, or land -- the accounts thus collected by me were not so taken with a view of publishing but for my own private use, and a matter of reference -- some of my friends in New York seeing the manuscript, urged its publication, & five hundred copies were struck off -- West P. Academy took 50 copies -- I have a single copy, but it is boxed up (with my other books, for moving, & cannot be got at -- as near as I can remember the title, it is as follows -- viz. "Official Account of Battles fought between the Army & Navy of the U. States & Great Britain, in the years 1812, '13, 14 & 15 -- by H. A. Fay, Capt. of Artillery."
An Officer of Watervliet Arsenal sent me one of your Circulars the other day, with various questions which I answered as well as my memory would allow -- (my papers not being before me) -- & so may the Lord bless you in your proposed publication --
Your friend and Servant
H. A. Fay
Cap. G. W. Cullum
   
   
Note:  "CULLUM, GEORGE WASHINGTON, soldier, author, was born Feb. 25, 1809, in New York city. He is a brevet major-general in the United States army; and the author of Military Bridges with India-Rubber Pontoons; Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the United States Military academy at West Point, 1802-90; and System of Military Bridges. He died Feb. 28, 1892, in New York city."  --from Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography of the Nineteenth Century, page 268.
   
"General Cullum, born in New York city, February 25th, 1809, died in New York city, February 28th, 1892, was graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1833, and brevetted a second lieutenant in the Engineer Corps. During the Mexican War he rendered valuable services as superintending engineer for devising and constructing sapper, miner and pontoon trains. In 1861 he was appointed chief engineer of the Department of the Missouri, with the rank of brigadier general of volunteers, and made chief of staff to General Halleck. The latter position he continued to hold after Halleck was made general in chief, and accompanied him in his Southwestern campaigns, and afterward to headquarters in Washington, D. C., until 1864, when he became superintendent of the United States Military Academy."� Frank Leslie, 1896; quoted on a clip art site