Michigan infantry, 28 Aug., 1861. He was com-
missioned captain, 15 May, 18G3; major, 1 Jan.,
1863 ; lieutenant-colonel, 3 Jlay, 1863 ; and colo-
nel, 12 July, 1864. During the war he probably
received and survived more wounds than any
other ofRcer. At Malvern Hill his temple-bone
was fractured and his jaw and collar-bone were
broken. At Chaneellorsville he was wounded in
the abdomen, but continued in his comn)and. In
the Wilderness battles his back was broken and
he sustained other injuries. On 37 Oct., 1864, he
was severely wounded in the right knee at Boyd-
ton Plank Road. In the official records of the
war he is mentioned thirteen times in connection
with important movements. His service in the
war was mostly with the Army of the Potorflac,
and on 13 March, 1865, he was brevetted brigadier-
general of volunteers " for good conduct and
meritorious services during the war." Gen. Pulford
was honorably mustered out on 5 July, 1865, but
was soon appointed to the regular army, in which
he was commissioned 2d and 1st lieutenant, 19th
infantry, 23 Feb., 1866; transferred to 37th in-
fantry, 21 Sept. of that year ; was retired with the
rank of colonel, 15 Dec, 1870. He served with
Gen. Hancock in his expedition against the hostile
Indians, and with the troops which had been as-
signed to guard the governmental mail route from
Fort Aubrey to Fort Lyon in 1867, and until his re-
tirement was on reconstruction and recruiting duty.
PURDUE, John, philanthropist, b. near Shep- ardsburg. Pa., 3 Oct., 1801 ; d. in Lafayette, Ind., 12 Sept., 1876. In his early youth he emigrated to Ohio with his parents. He received a common- school education, taught for a time, became a dry- goods merchant, settled in Lafayette, Ind., in 1839, and accumulated a fortune, also engaged in manu- facturing. Mr. Purdue was owner of the Lafay- ette "Journal," and in 1866 was an unsuccessful independent candidate for congress. In 1869 he founded Purdue university in his adopted town, giving $150,000 toward its endowment.
PUTNAM, Herbert, librarian, b. in New York city, 20 Sept., 1861, is the son of George P. Put- nam, the publisher (q. v.). He was graduated from Harvard with the class of 1883 ; the following year he spent at Columbia law-school. In 1884 he became librarian of the Minneapolis athena-um, and later was appointed librarian of the Minne- apolis public library, a city institution which he organized upon the basis of the athenaeum ; he held this position until December, 1891. Then he took up the practice of law in Boston until 1895, when he was appointed librarian of the Boston public library, just removed from Boylston street to the new building in Copley square. After the death of John Russell Young, President McKinley appointed him librarian of congress in March, 1899. During 1896-'7 he was president of the Massachusetts library club, he represented the United States as a delegate to the International library conference at London in 1897, and in 1898 he was chosen president of the American libi-ary association, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justin Winsor. He received the honorary de- gree of Litt. D. from Bowdoin in 1898.
PUTNAM, Samuel Porter, atheist, b. 23 July, 1838, in Chichester, N. H. ; d. in Boston, 11 Dec, 1896. He graduated at Dartmouth in 1861, when he entered as a private, and was promoted during the war to a captaincy. In 1865 he entered the theological seminary in Chicago, where he was graduated in 1868, and preached for three years thereafter in the orthodox pulpits of Illinois. In 1871 he became a Unitarian minister, and after preaching for several years in various states he re- nounced the Christian religion and became an avowed freethinker. He attacked the Bible and Christianity upon the platform, and for twenty years probably making more speeches against them than any other American, speaking almost every day for months together. In 1887 he established a "Journal of Freethought" in San Francisco. He was the author of " Prometheus," " Gottlieb : His Life," " Golden Throne," " Waifs and Wander- ings," " lugersoll and Jesus," " Why don't he lend a lland^ " " Adami and Heva," "The New God," "The Problem of the Universe," " My Religious Experience," " Pen Pictures of the World's Fair," and " Four Hundred Years of Freethought."
