Person

Edward Davis Townsend (Assistant Adjutant General (U.S.Army))

b. 1817-08-22 d. 1893-05-10

Washington, D.C., soldier. Boston, Massachusetts, native. Son of David S. Townsend and Eliza Gerry Townsend. Married to Ann Overing Townsend on May 9, 1848. Father of Thomas Townsend, Edward Townsend, and Henrietta Townsend. Graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1837. Served in the 2nd United States Artillery as second lieutenant, first lieutenant, captain, and brevet major, from 1837 to 1861. Engaged in the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation to Indian Territory (Trail of Tears) in 1838. Transferred to the Adjutant General's Corps as lieutenant colonel and colonel. Chief of Staff to Lieutenant General Winfield Scott in Washington, D.C., from March 7, 1861, to November 1, 1861. Served as Assistant Adjutant General from November 1, 1861, to March 23, 1863. Served as Acting Adjutant General from March 23, 1863, to August 12, 1866.

Details

Sex
Male
Race
White

Bibliography

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850)," Population Schedules, District of Columbia, Ward 1, p. 31A.

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, District of Columbia, Ward 1, p. 273.

"General Edward D. Townsend," Boston Evening Transcript (Boston, MA), May 12, 1893, p. 5.

Appletons' Cyclopedia of American Biography, vol. VI, (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1889), p. 147.

George W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. from Its Establishment, in 1802, to 1890, with the Early History of the United States Military Academy, 3rd edition, vol. I (Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, 1891), 673-4.

Francis S. Drake, Memorials of the Society of the Cincinnati of Massachusetts (Cambridge, MA: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1873), 484.

Citation

Townsend, Edward Davis. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, https://discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/S32208217 (November 12, 2026).

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