Edward Everett (1818-1905?), soldier, military clerk, illustrator and cartographer (also nephew and namesake of the Unitarian Minister and Gettysburg orator Edward Everett ), was born in London, England 31 March 1818. In 1840, his father, Charles Everett, a successful import/export dealer in London, relocated the family to Quincy, Illinois . By his twenties, Edward Everett had already shown exemplary aptitude for drawing, mechanics, chemistry and engineering.
In 1843, with his brother, Charles Everett, Jr., Edward Everett joined the famed Quincy Riflemen, led by James Morgan, to challenge the growing Mormon stronghold in the Illinois area. He and his brother fought in the battle of Nauvoo, the last anti-Mormon armed conflict. A few days after war was declared against Mexico (1846) the Everett brothers, along with others of the Quincy Riflemen, which had been mustered out of state service, joined the United States service, and were transferred to the Texas - Mexico border.
As a soldier for the U. S. Army in the Mexican War, Edward Everett served as a peace-keeper and member of Company A, First Illinois Volunteers. Soon after arriving in South Texas, however, after a forced march of 150 miles from outside New Orleans, to reach S an Antonio de Bexar in order to guard stores left there, Everett was severely wounded. On 11 Sept. 1846, while acting in his role as sergeant of the patrol guard, to arrest a man inciting riot in the town, Everett was shot in the knee, a wound which eventually left him crippled. Unable to continue on with his regiment under Brigadier General John E. Wool to Saltillo, Everett was confined to the military tent hospital in San Antonio, and thereafter declared permanently disabled from active military service.
Everett began writing about Texas and Mexico in letters to his brother Samuel W. Everett back home in Illinois, and in his journals, while he was recuperating from his wound. Everett continued recording his observations after being re-assigned as Assistant Quartermaster for Captain James Harvey Ralston, a position Everett held during the remainder of the war. Everett notes that, in his role as clerk, furloughed from active duties as a soldier, he had a unique vantage point from which to observe the culture and events around him, and ample opportunity to employ his innate ability to communicate with words and illustrations. As an accountant for the quartermaster, Everett also wrote many official reports, and his skill in presenting a clear narrative is evident in the papers.
During this period, Everett produced many fine illustrations of the Spanish mission buildings in the area, including the Alamo Mission buildings . The memoir included in the papers gives a particularly immediate account of the Alamo buildings' decay, and attempts in the spring of 1847 at renovating them for an army stores depot and officers' workshops. For example, Everett also illustrated his account with a lively pen and ink vignette of a bat hanging onto whatever it could find, after being so disturbed.
Edward Everett married Mary A. Billings of Quincy, Ill. 7 Oct. 1857, the sister of a Unitarian minister . After his retirement in 1859 from active duty in the military, Everett worked as chief clerk in Washington, and later, during the Civil War, became Illinois Assistant Quartermaster, earning the rank of Major . In his later life, he apparently also illustrated several articles on Hawaii and other places to which he and his wife traveled. He died 24 July 1903 in Roxbury, Mass., and is buried in Boston, Mass. in Forest Hills Cemetery .
From the guide to the Inventory of the Edward Everett Papers Ragan MSS 00128., 1846-1906 (bulk: 1846-1852), (Cushing Memorial Library)
