LOGAN, JOHN ALEXANDER (1826-1886), American soldier and political leader, was born in what is now Murphys borough, Ill., on Feb. 9, 1826. He had no schooling until he was 14; he then studied for three years in Shiloh college, served in the Mexican War as a lieutenant of volunteers, graduated from the law department of Louisville university in 1851, and practised law with success. He entered politics as a Douglas Democrat. In 1858 and 186o he was elected to the National House of Repre sentatives. Though unattached and unenlisted, he fought at Bull Run, and then returned to Washington, resigned his seat, and entered the Union army as colonel of a regiment of volunteers, which he organized. He was regarded as one of the ablest officers who entered the army from civil life. In Grant's campaigns terminating in the capture of Vicksburg he rose to the rank of major-general of volunteers; in 1863 he was placed in command of an army corps, and after the death of McPherson he was in com mand of the army of the Tennessee at the battle of Atlanta. When the war closed, Logan resumed his political career as a Republican, and was a member of the National House of Repre sentatives from 1867 to 1871, and of the U.S. Senate from 1871
until 1877 and again from 1879 until his death. He was always a violent partisan, and was identified with the radical wing of the Republican Party. His war record and his large personal following, especially in the Grand Army of the Republic, con tributed to his nomination for vice-president in 1884 on the ticket with James G. Blaine, but he was not elected. His impetuous oratory, popular on the platform, was less adapted to the halls of legislation. When commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1868-71, he successfully urged the observance of Memorial or Decoration Day, an idea which probably origi nated with him. He died at Washington, D.C., Dec. 26, 1886. He was the author of The Great Conspiracy: its Origin and History (1886). a partisan account of the Civil War. and of The Volunteer Soldier of America (1887). There is a fine statue of him by Saint-Gaudens in Chicago.
The best biography is that by George F. Dawson, The Life and Services of Gen. John A. Logan, as Soldier and Statesman (Chicago, 1887). See also Mary S. C. Logan, Reminiscences of a Soldier's Wife (1913).