reached the highest rank that he was to attain, brevet colonel of the U.S. Volunteers. Crowninshield was the provost marshal on duty at the time W.H.F. Lee, by then a cavalry general in the Confederate States Army, was captured after the Battle of Brandy Station in June 1863. Crowninshield's son Francis was later to record that it was "a truly embarrassing position for both of them", with Lee rejecting "any of the privileges [that] Crowninshield tried to bestow upon him". After the war he became a member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States - a military society of officers who had served in the Union armed forces. Post war Crowninshield pursued the study of history, publishing and speaking on various topics, such as yachting and military history. He wrote his History of the First Massachusetts Cavalry (see further reading) in 1891. His personal account of Sheridan at Winchester (also listed in further reading) was published in Atlantic Monthly. In 1868, Crowninshield commissioned his friend H.H. Richardson to design and build a house on Marlborough Street in the newly land-filled Back Bay area of Boston. The Crowninshield House, completed in 1870, still exists. After the War, Crowninshield married and moved to New York, where he was a member of New York drygoods merchants Sprague, Colburn, and Company. In 1868 he moved to Boston to join a different drygood merchants, Wheelwright, Anderson, and Company. He was later president of the Realty Company. His health began to fail in 1891, and he died January 16, 1892, at age 54, in Rome, having travelled to Europe for a rest. His oldest son was boat designer Bowdoin B. Crowninshield (1867–1948). Family tree References Further reading reprinted as: BW Crowninshield and Francis Boardman Crowninshield. A private journal, 1856–1858. Cambridge MA: Riverside Press, 1941. People from Back Bay, Boston 19th-century American people Harvard College alumni 1837 births 1892 deaths Crowninshield family