Horatio P. Van Cleve

Horatio Phillips Van Cleve
Horatio P. Van Cleve
Born	(1809-11-23)November 23, 1809 Princeton, New Jersey
Died	August 24, 1891(1891-08-24) (aged 81) Minneapolis, Minnesota
Place of burial	Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Allegiance	United States of America Union
Service/branch	United States Army Union Army
Rank	Brevet Major General
Commands held	2nd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry
Battles/wars	American Civil War Battle of Mill Springs Siege of Corinth Battle of Perryville Battle of Stones River Battle of Chickamauga Battle of Wilkinson Pike

Horatio Phillips Van Cleve (November 23, 1809 – August 24, 1891) was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Van Cleve was born in Princeton, New Jersey. He studied for two years at Princeton University, and then entered the United States Military Academy. He graduated in 1831 and served at frontier posts in the Michigan Territory. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant of infantry on December 31, 1831. He resigned from the Army on September 11, 1836, and settled in Michigan. He taught in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1840–41, and then engaged in farming near Ann Arbor, Michigan. Van Cleve was an engineer in the service of the state of Michigan in 1855, and then United States Surveyor of Public Lands in Minnesota. In 1856, he engaged in stock-raising.

After the start of the Civil War, he was commissioned as colonel of the 2nd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment on July 22, 1861. He met wife Charlotte Ouisconsin Clark Van Cleve, at Fort Winnebago, while both her father and Horatio were stationed there. She would write the book Three Score Years and Ten, Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other Parts of the West, about the early days of Fort Snelling and her travels through the pioneer midwest. She was the first white woman born in the Wisconsin Territory, in the settlement of Prairie du Chien.