The Second, or Ripley’s, brigade was still smaller, and became even more famous. Eleazar Wheelock Ripley was born in New Hampshire, in the year 1782. He became a resident of Portland in Maine, and was sent as a representative to the State legislature at Boston, where he was chosen speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Jan. 17, 1812, on the retirement of Joseph Story to become a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. A few weeks afterward, March 12, 1812, Ripley took the commission of lieutenant-colonel of the Twenty-first regiment, to be enlisted in Massachusetts. A year afterward he became colonel of the same regiment, and took part in the battle of Chrystler’s Field. Secretary Armstrong made him a brigadier-general April 15, 1814, his commission bearing date about a month after that of Winfield Scott. Both the new brigadiers were sent to Niagara, where Scott formed a brigade from regiments trained by himself; and Ripley was given a brigade composed of his old regiment, the Twenty-first, with detachments from the Seventeenth and Nineteenth and Twenty-third. The strength of the brigade, July 1, 1814, was reported in the monthly return as follows:-- _Strength of the Second, or Ripley’s, Brigade._ PRESENT FOR DUTY. AGGREGATE. +---------------^-----------------+ | Non-com. Officers, Officers. | Present and rank-and-file. absent. Twenty-first Regiment 651 25 917 Twenty-third Regiment 341 8 496 General staff 2 2 --- -- ---- Total 992 35 1415 Ripley’s old regiment, the Twenty-first, was given to Colonel James Miller, who had served in the Tippecanoe campaign as major in the Fourth Infantry, and had shared the misfortune of that regiment at Detroit. The other regiment composing the brigade--the Twenty-third--was raised in New York, and was usually commanded by one or another of its majors, McFarland or Brooke. Ripley’s brigade numbered one thousand and twenty-seven men present for duty, on the first day of July. The artillery, under the command of Major Hindman, was composed of four companies. _Strength of Hindman’s Battalion of Artillery._ PRESENT FOR DUTY. AGGREGATE. Towson’s Company 89 101 Biddle’s Company 80 104 Ritchie’s Company 96 133 Williams’s Company 62 73 --- --- Total 327 413