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 p72  Joshua H. Bates
No. 915. Class of 1837.
Died, July 26, 1908, at Cincinnati, Ohio, aged 91.

"General Joshua Hall Bates, soldier and lawyer, died at the Burnet House, Cincinnati, Sunday afternoon, July 26, at the age of ninety-one years, four months and twenty-one days. He had been sixty-six years at the Ohio bar, and was perhaps the oldest attorney in the state.

"General Bates was born in Boston, March 5, 1817. He was a son of Dr. George and Elizabeth (Hall) Bates, and the grandson of Major Bates, of the Revolutionary Army. After graduation from the Boston Latin School, young Bates was appointed by General Jackson, a personal friend of his father, to a cadet­ship in the West Point Military School, from which he graduated and entered the regular army in 1837. His military service began as a second lieutenant in the 4th U. S. Artillery. He served through the Seminole War, and later during the patriotic uprising in Canada, which it was found necessary to control by the presence of troops. He employed his leisure time while in the army in reading law, and after five years' service, during which time he had been promoted to first lieutenant, he resigned from the army in 1842.

"After some further study in the office of the late Hon. Bellamy Storer, the young soldier was admitted to the Bar during the latter part of 1842, in his twenty-sixth year. For two years he was associated with William Key Bond, and then with Wm. S. Scarborough until the breaking out of the Civil War in 1861, when he entered the army with the rank of Brigadier General.

"During the summer of 1861, General Bates was in command at Camp Denison,º where he organized fifteen regiments, which as fast as ready were sent to the front. Later he commanded the defenses of Cincinnati during the Kirby Smith raid. He was frequently called to Washington for consultation with the military authorities, and on these occasions came in contact with Lincoln, of whom he cherished many pleasant and interesting recollections.

"At the close of the war General Bates returned to the practice of the law in Cincinnati. He was associated for a time with his son, Judge Clement Bates, whose name has since become so well known to the Bar of the state through his Digests, Annotations to the Revised  p73 Statues, Pleading and Practice and other legal works. In 1883, he became a law partner of Judge Rufus B. Smith. The following year the firm of Bates & Kaufman (H. P. Kaufman) was formed, which was continued for more than twenty-one years, or until the summer of 1905, when General Bates formally retired from the practice.

"General Bates was twice a member of the State Senate, and in 1872 was a member of the Electoral College. Through all his life he was an honored and respected citizen. A Democrat prior to the Civil War, he became a Republican with the breaking out of hostilities and remained a staunch member of the party until his death.

"General Bates married Elizabeth Dwight Hoadly, a sister of the late Governor Hoadly. The sixty-fifth anniversary of their wedding occurred in May of this year. Five children survive, viz., Judge Clement Bates, of this city; Charles J. Bates, representing the Equitable Insurance Co. in Spain; W. S. Bates, of San Francisco; Harvey S. Bates, of New York, and Dr. M. L. Bates, of this city."

— From the Cincinnati, Ohio, Court Index of July 28, 1908.

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