Livermore, W. R. (William Roscoe), 1843-1919

William Roscoe Livermore (1843-1919) was born in Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard and West Point during the years of the Civil War. He graduated in 1865 and joined the Army Corps of Engineers.

William Roscoe Livermore (1843–1919) was born in Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard and West Point during the years of the Civil War. He graduated in 1865 and joined the Army Corps of Engineers. In 1870 he was promoted to captain; in 1884, to major; and in 1904, to colonel. He worked on a variety of projects for the Corps of Engineers between 1865 and 1899, some of them in association with the Naval War College. Significant projects included fortifications of Key West and the Tortugas (Florida) and work on the first cable from the United States to Havana; fortifications and river, harbor, and lighthouse improvements in the Northeast and in Missouri; and surveying in the Great Lakes area and Texas. He maintained a lifelong interest in surveying and mapping, and helped develop and adapt large-scale military surveying and the German method of "studying the Art of War upon a map" for use by the U.S. Army. He also published a manual of tactics, Maneuvers for Infantry, in 1884. In 1899 he was sent to Europe as Military Attaché to the embassies at Copenhagen and Stockholm, and traveled to Germany and Russia to witness army maneuvers.

Livermore's diverse interests in science, technology, and history were expressed in invention and publication in several areas. While working to improve fog-signaling systems, he invented an improved bell-striking device which was patented in 1899. His interest in firearms led him to develop, with Colonel A. H. Russell, magazine and automatic weapons and the method of loading by clips. Together they patented a magazine gun in 1879 and a cartridge packing case in 1883. Livermore was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the section of chemistry and published a paper on the mathematical relations of atomic weights in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (Vol. XII, No. 9). He completed a history of the Civil War begun by a colleague (John C. Ropes) at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and had been working on a historical atlas of Europe before his death in a New York hospital in 1919.

Biographical information derived from collection.