CORSE, John Murray, soldier, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 27 April, 1835. He was graduated at the United States military academy in 1857, but immediately resigned and entered the Albany law-school. As soon as he returned to his home in Iowa he was nominated by the democrats for lieutenant governor. He entered the United States service as major of the 6th Iowa volunteers in August, 1861, served under General Fremont, and then as judge-advocate and inspector-general on the staff of General Pope; but after the victories of Island No. 10 and Shiloh preferring active service, joined his regiment, and became its colonel. He commanded a division at Memphis, and was commissioned a brigadier-general on 11 August, 1863. He served in the Chattanooga campaign, distinguished himself at Chickamauga, and was wounded at Missionary Ridge. In Sherman's march to the sea he commanded a division of the 15th corps. When, after the evacuation of Atlanta, the Confederates crossed the Chattahoochee and destroyed the railroad, Corse was ordered from Rome to the relief of Allatoona, where an infantry division of the enemy threatened large commissary supplies, guarded by 890 men, under Col. Tourtellotte. General Corse arrived with 1,054 troops before the Confederates; but when the latter came up, being greatly superior in numbers, they closely surrounded the position. To the summons of the Confederate general, French, to surrender and avoid a needless effusion of blood, General Corse returned a defiant answer. The Confederates, numbering 4,000 or 5,000, attacked the fortifications furiously, 5 October, 1864, but were repeatedly driven back. General Sherman, who had dispatched a corps to attack the Confederate rear, signaled from Kenesaw mountain, where he heard the roar of battle, eighteen miles away, for the commander to hold out, as relief was approaching; and when he learned the relations of vocal culture to an aesthetic appreciation of poetry ; and a "Hand-Book of Anglo-Saxon and Early English" (New York, 1871). He has also prepared a thesaurus of early English, containing a complete verbal and glossarial index of the "Canterbury Tales," "Piers Ploughman," Gower's "Confessio Amantis," Wycliffe's Bible, Spenser, and Chapman's Homer.