Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Collins McLean


McLean  (265 KB)

Nathaniel Collins McLean graduated at Augusta College, Kentucky when he was but 16. He went immediately to Harvard, where he passed through the studies of the senior classes as a resident graduate, and then entered law school.5

 

In September 1838, at 20 years of age, he married Caroline Thew Burnet, then 18. Just over nine months later they were parents. He and his young bride, however, did not settle into married life in a manner typical to backwoods Ohio in the mid 1800's, even for the better off.

"Warned by his physician that he must give up the practice of law he took his family to Versailles, France, where he lived for two years. At the end of that time, his health being completely restored, he returned to Cincinnati and to the practice of law."

-Newspaper Obituary

 

If his early rush into adulthood was so overwelming as to merit such a bold prescription, one wonders what his phyician would have said when his patient went on to face the protracted ordeal of the American Civil War. The extremes of responsibility, physical duress, stress and horror he and so many others faced was on a scale that is hard for most civilians to even imagine.4

My Civil War Story

In 1856 Caroline died suddenly at age 35. Two years later, Nathaniel, then 40, had wed the 21 year old Mary Louis Thompson.3 5  Later, in the wars aftermath, Nathaniel and Louis packed up and moved further west. As a result new Mclean family roots began in the Lake City, Frontenac area of Minnessota. A local history reported at the time:

In 1866 he came to this county and retired to the quietness of his beautiful home in the village, which stands on a commanding eminence overlooking the waters of Lake Pepin. Also owns 394 acres, valued at $10,000. 5

Nathaniel appeared on the census of May 1870 in Cincinnati, Ohio as a 51 year old white male lawyer and head of the household.6 Post office: Madisonville

When he died in Long Island New York at 1905 2 his obituary noted he was survived by:

Jacob B., Caroline B., wife of H.A. Post of New York; Evaline, wife of Charles W. Whipple; John, Elizabeth M., Mary L., Nathlie, Marshall, Henriette P. are their living children. Lost three children, Rebecca, Nathaniel C. and Larz A.5 

Family/Genealogy

Sources


1 General McLean (Original obituary clipping from unknown paper, ca. 1905). Saved/donated by Lorne McLean

2 Dept of Interior, Bureau of Pensions, Pension Document, USA (US Government printers, Washington, DC), No. 1312 208 May 7th, 1904.

3 Report to the United State Senate, No. 4930, Mary Louise McLean.

4 The Union Army, vol. 8.

5 "History of Goodhue County, Red Wing, Minnesota" (Wood, Alley & Company, St. James Building, Red Wing, 1878), http://kathrynmn_1.tripod.com/surnamesM.htm. Extracted to the web site "GOODHUE COUNTY, MINNESOTA, Family Biographies", 2004 http://kathrynmn_1.tripod.com/alphabet.htm

6 "Census of Hamilton Co., Ohio, 1870" (USA), Roll: M593_1207, p. 222. Image 451.

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