Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

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Lander, Frederick West 1821-

Military officer; born in Salem, Mass., Dec. 17, 1821; studied civil engineering, and was employed by the government in conducting explorations across the continent. He made two surveys to determine the practicability of a railroad route to the Pacific. In the last, he alone of all the party returned alive. He surveyed and constructed a great overland wagon-road, which had been recently completed when the Civil War broke out, when he was employed on secret missions to the South. On the staff of General McClellan he was very active in the vicinity of the upper Potomac. In a skirmish at Edwards's Ferry, after the disaster at Ball's Bluff (q. v.,) he was wounded in the leg. In January, 1862, he was on active duty, and repulsed a large Confederate force at Hancock, Va. Before his wound was healed he made a brilliant dash, Feb. 14, 1862, on Blooming Gap, for which the Secretary of War gave him special thanks. His health was evidently giving away, and he applied for temporary relief from military duty; but, impatient, he prepared to make another attack on the Confederates, when he suddenly died from congestion of the brain, in Paw Paw, Va., March 2, 1862.