White, Julius

Born: 1816-09-23 Cazenovia, New York

Died: 1890-05-12 Evanston, Illinois

Julius White was a businessman, state legislator, customs collector, and general in the Union Army. At the age of twenty, White moved from his native state to Illinois, where he engaged in commercial pursuits. He subsequently moved his business interests to Wisconsin, settling in Milwaukee. In 1849, White represented Milwaukee and Milwaukee County in the Wisconsin State Assembly. He later moved back to Illinois, settling in Chicago. In March 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed White collector of customs in Chicago. He resigned from this position to become colonel of the Thirty-Seventh Illinois Regiment, a regiment he raised that became known as the "Fremont Rifles." He accompanied his unit to southwestern Missouri. In March 1862, he commanded a brigade at the Battle of Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern), suffering a wounded leg. In June, he received promotion to brigadier general. Transferred to the East, White participated in the Antietam campaign, and was among those captured when Harper's Ferry surrendered in September 1862. Exchanged in January 1863, he received a transfer to the Department of the Ohio, and he commanded a division of the XXIII Corps at the Battle of Knoxville in the fall of 1863. Recalled to the Army of the Potomac in the summer of 1864, White was chief of staff of the XI Corps and later commander of the XI Corp's First Division. In November 1864, he resigned from the army, and in March 1865, he was breveted major general. He was minister to Argentina during the postwar years.

J. D. Beck, comp., The Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin (Madison, WI: Democratic Printing, 1909), 945; John H. Eicher and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 565-66; Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002), 556-57; Gravestone, Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum, Chicago, IL.