Napoleon Bonaparte Buford
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Napoleon Bonaparte Buford (1807-83) was an American soldier and railroad executive.
Buford was born in Kentucky on his family's plantation. He graduated from West Point in 1827 and served for eight years in the artillery. He studied law at Harvard, was assistant professor at West Point, and in 1835 resigned from the service to become an engineer. He thereafter engaged in iron manufacturing and banking at Peoria, Ill., and became president of the Rock Island and Peoria Railroad, which went bankrupt when major Southern bonds were defaulted with the start of the Civil War.
In the Civil War, he was first a colonel of the 27th Illinois Infantry and then a brigadier general, took part in the sieges of Corinth and Vicksburg, and in 1865 was brevetted major general of volunteers while commanding the District of Eastern Arkansas. He mustered out of the army in August 1865.
Buford was government inspector of the Union Pacific Railroad from 1867 to 1869 and a special commissioner of Indian affairs in 1867–68.
- This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.
