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The text that follows is reproduced from (the report of the) Thirty-First Annual Reunion of the Association of the Graduates of the United States Military Academy, June 12th, 1900.

 p44  Edmund La Fayette Hardcastle
No. 1276. Class of 1846.
Died, August 11, 1899, at Towson, Md., aged 75.

General​a Edmund La Fayette Hardcastle died yesterday near Towson, Md., of apoplexy. He was born in Denton, Md., October 18, 1824. He entered West Point Military Academy July 1, 1842, and remained there until July 1, 1846, when he was graduated and promoted in the army to Brevet Second Lieutenant, Engineers.

He immediately entered the service on the coast surveys, but was in the same year ordered to serve in the war with Mexico and was engaged in the siege of Vera Cruz, the battle of Cerro Gordo, the skirmish of Amazoque, the capture of San Antonio, the battle of Cherubusco,º the battle of Chapultepec, the battle of Molino del Rey, and the assault and capture of the City of  p45 Mexico. He was brevetted First Lieutenant August 20, 1847, for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battles of Contreras​b and Cherubusco,º Mexico, and was brevetted Captain September 8, 1847, for a display of courage at Molino del Rey.

He held several responsible offices with the army in Washington after returning from the Mexican War, but resigned in 1856 and retired to a farm in Talbot County, Maryland, where he lived quietly until his death. He was at one time president of the Maryland and Delaware Railroad Company, and was a member of the House of Delegates of the Maryland Legislature, from 1870 to 1878. He was also a delegate to several Democratic National Conventions, but in more recent years he had but little to do with politics.

New York Times


Thayer's Notes:

a So The New York Times, with its usual accuracy. The highest military rank attained by the subject was Captain. Curious though that the AOG Report should have repeated the mistake.

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b This obituary in The New York Times is an abridgment and paraphrase of the entry in Cullum's Register (q.v.), and uncritically grabbed what appears to be a mistake there. So many officers were recorded in the Register to have been breveted for gallantry in these two battles together, that although Cullum doesn't record Lt. Hardcastle as being present at the battle of Contreras, involved instead at the skirmish at Amazoque, nevertheless he brevets him for that battle, no doubt thru a templating error (an old friend to the writer of these webpages).


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