Hitchcock, Ethan A., major-general, was born in Vergennes, 
Vt., May 18, 1798.  He was graduated at West Point in 1817 and 
saw continuous service in the United States army until 1855, 
when he resigned on account of personal differences with 
Jefferson Davis, then secretary of war.  He served during this 
period on frontier duty, as instructor and later commandant at 
West Point in the Seminole war and in the Mexican war, where 
he won the brevets of colonel and brigadier-general for 
gallantry.  At the beginning of the Civil war he re-entered 
the army, was made major-general of volunteers and stationed 
at Washington, where he served on the commission for the 
exchange of prisoners and on that for the revision of the 
military code.  He was a warm personal friend and the military 
adviser of President Lincoln.  After the war he served on the 
Pacific coast, but resigned in 1867 on account of ill health 
and died in Sparta, Ga., Aug. 5, 1870.