SOLOMON, EDWARD S. (known also as Salomon):
American soldier and jurist; born at Sleswick, Sleswick-Holstein, Dec. 25, 1836. On completing his education at the high school of his native town he emigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago, where he was elected alderman in 1860. At the outbreak of the Civil war he joined the Twenty-fourth Illinois Infantry as second lieutenant, participating in the battles of Frederickton and Mainfordsville, Kentucky, and being promoted step by step to the rank of major (1862). On account of some disagreement among the officers of the regiment Major Solomon—together with some comrades—resigned, and organized the Eighty-second Illinois Infantry, in which regiment he became lieutenant-colonel, and then advanced to colonel. Under General Howe, Solomon took part in the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge. In 1865 he was brevetted brigadier-general. When peace was restored he settled in Chicago, and became county clerk of Cook county, Ill. In 1870 President Grant appointed him governor of Washington territory, from which position he resigned in 1874, removing to San Francisco, where he still (1905) resides. He has been twice elected to the legislature of California, and has also held the office of district attorney of San Francisco.
Solomon was one of the department commanders of the Grand Army of the Republic, and for eight years commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy Republican League.
- Simon Wolf, The American Jew as Patriot, Soldier, and Citizen, pp. 164-170, 425, Philadelphia, 1895;
- The American Jewish Year Book, 5665 (1904-1905), pp. 179-180.
