Higginson, Thomas Wentworth

Thomas Wentworth, (1823-), an American author. He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He took a degree at Harvard in 1841, and six years later graduated from the Harvard Divinity School. He became pastor of a Unitarian Church at Newburyport, but, becoming prominent in the anti-slavery agitation, he resigned his pastorate, realizing that his views were unacceptable to his congregation. During the Civil War he was captain of the 51st Massachusetts regiment of volunteers. In 1862 he was made colonel of the First South Carolina volunteers, the first regiment of freed slaves. He was obliged to resign from the army before the close of the war on account of disability. Since that time he has devoted himself chiefly to literature. He has been also a successful lecturer on public questions, warmly advocating woman suffrage and the higher education of women. He married as his second wife, Mary Thacher, herself an author. In the field of literature, he has figured most prominently as an essayist and writer of magazine articles, but is also a poet, a novelist, and a historian. Among his published volumes may be mentioned Young Folks' History of the United States, Larger History of the United States, History of England for Americans, The Monarch of Dreams, Army Life in a Black Regiment, Cheerful Yesterdays, Life of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Life of Henry W. Longfellow, Life of John G. Whittier. His poems are included in the volumes The Afternoon Landscape and Such as They Are, the latter having been produced in collaboration with Mrs. Higginson. His principal work in fiction is Melbone, an Oldport Romance. Colonel Higginson was a friend of George William Curtis and of many of the older New England writers. He has been a warm friend also of younger authors, many of whom owe much to his kindly criticism and helpful suggestions.