Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Tomes, Robert

TOMES, Robert, physician, b. in New York city, 27 March, 1817; d. in Brooklyn, N. Y., 28 Aug., 1882. He was graduated at Washington (now Trinity) college in 1835, and, after spending some time in the medical schools of Philadelphia, went to the University of Edinburgh, where he received the degree of M. D. in 1840. He then studied in Paris, and on his return to the United States settled in the practice of his profession in New York, but after a few years was appointed surgeon on a vessel belonging to the Pacific mail steamship company, and made several voyages between Panama and San Francisco. In 1865 he was appointed U. S. consul at Rheims, France, which office he filled until 1867. Returning to the United States, he spent most of his life in literary occupation. He wrote for journals and magazines, and his series of papers in “Harper's Magazine” on American manners and society were widely popular. He published “The Bourbon Prince” (New York, 1853); “Richard the Lion-Hearted” (1854); “Oliver Cromwell” (1855); “Panama in 1855” (1855); “The Americans in Japan” (1857); “The Battles of America by Sea and Land” (3 vols., 1861); “The Champagne Country” (1867); and “The War with the South: a History of the Great American Rebellion” (3 vols., 1864-'7; German translation, 2 vols., 1864-'7). Dr. Tomes also translated works from the French and German.