Biography
He was the grandson of Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, and the grandnephew of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte of France.
He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1848 and graduated 11th in the Class of 1852. Upon graduation, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and served in Texas with the Mounted Rifle Regiment. His letters from Fort Inge and Fort Ewell have been preserved by the Maryland Historical Society.
He resigned from the U.S. Army in August 1854 to serve in the army of his first cousin-once-removed, Napoleon III of France, and was commissioned as a lieutenant in French Army. He fought in Algeria, the Crimean War, the Italian campaign, and the Franco-Prussian War, rising to the rank of colonel.
In 1870, he resigned from the French Army and returned home to the United States where he married Caroline Le Roy Appleton Edgar, daughter of Samuel and Julia Webster Appleton, and widow of Newbold Edgar. They would have two children:
- Louise-Eugénie Bonaparte (1873–1923); married, in 1896, Count Adam Carl von Moltke-Huitfeld (1864–1944): they have numerous descendants.
- Jerome Napoleon Charles Bonaparte (1878–1945); married, in 1914, Blanche Pierce Stenbeigh, daughter of Edward and Emily Pierce of Newtonville, Massachusetts, and former wife of Harold Stenbeigh of Hewlett, New York; no issue.
He died in Prides Crossing, Massachusetts.
Read more about this topic: Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte II
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)