John Codman Ropes (April 28, 1836October 28, 1899) was an American military historian and
lawyer
A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...
, and the co-founder of the
law firm
A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to r ...
Ropes & Gray
Ropes & Gray LLP is a global law firm with 13 offices located in the United States, Asia and Europe. The firm has more than 1,500 lawyers and professionals worldwide, and its clients include corporations and financial institutions, government agen ...
.
Early life
Ropes was born on April 28, 1836, in
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, the son of a leading merchant of
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
who was engaged in business in Russia.
At the age of fourteen, his family having returned to Massachusetts, he developed an infection of the spine which eventually became a permanent deformity.
![John-Codman-Ropes-plaque](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/John-Codman-Ropes-plaque.jpg)
He entered
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
in 1853, and graduated in 1857. His interests as a young man were chiefly religious, legal and historical, and these remained with him throughout life, his career as a lawyer being conspicuous and successful. But it was the outbreak of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
in 1861 which fixed his attention principally on military history. He ceaselessly assisted with business and personal help and friendship the officers and men of the 20th Massachusetts regiment, in which his brother, Henry Ropes, was
killed in action at
Gettysburg, and after the war he devoted himself to the collection and elucidation of all obtainable evidence as to its incidents and events. In 1865, he co-founded the Boston-based
law firm
A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to r ...
Ropes & Gray with
John Chipman Gray
John Chipman Gray (July 14, 1839February 25, 1915) was an American scholar of property law and professor at Harvard Law School. He also founded the law firm Ropes & Gray, with law partner John Codman Ropes. He was half-brother to U.S. Supreme C ...
.
Work
In this work his clear and unprejudiced legal mind enabled him to sift the truth from the innumerable public and private controversies, and the ill-informed allotment of praise and blame by the popular historians and biographers. The focus of his work was the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, which he founded in 1876. The work of this society was the collection and discussion of evidence relating to the great conflict. Although practically every member of his society except himself had fought through the war, and many, such as Hancock and W. F. Smith, were general officers of great distinction, it was from first to last maintained and guided by Ropes, who presented to it his military library and his collection of prints and medals. He died at his home in Boston on October 28, 1899.
His principal work is an unfinished ''Story of the Civil War'', to which he devoted most of his later years; this covers the years 1861-62. ''The Army under Pope'' is a detailed narration of the Virginia campaign of August–September 1862, which played a great part in reversing contemporary judgment on the events of those operations, notably as regards the unjustly-condemned
General Fitz John Porter. Outside America, Ropes is known chiefly as the author of ''The Campaign of Waterloo'',
which is one of the standard works on the subject.
The greater part of his studies of the Civil War appears in the Military Historical Society's publications. Papers on the
Waterloo campaign
The Waterloo campaign (15 June – 8 July 1815) was fought between the French Army of the North (France), Army of the North and two Seventh Coalition armies, an Anglo-allied army and a Prussian army. Initially the French army was commanded by ...
appeared in the ''Atlantic Monthly'' of June 1881, and in ''Scribner's Magazine'' of March and April 1888. Among his miscellaneous works is a paper on "The Likenesses of Julius Caesar" in ''Scribner's Magazine'' (February 1887).
See also
*
Ropes & Gray
Ropes & Gray LLP is a global law firm with 13 offices located in the United States, Asia and Europe. The firm has more than 1,500 lawyers and professionals worldwide, and its clients include corporations and financial institutions, government agen ...
, law firm co-founded by Ropes
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ropes, John Codman
1836 births
1899 deaths
Lawyers from Boston
Harvard University alumni
19th-century American historians
People of Massachusetts in the American Civil War
Historians of the American Civil War
American military historians
American male non-fiction writers
19th-century American male writers
People associated with Ropes & Gray
19th-century American lawyers
American people of Russian descent