McPHERSON, Edward, author, born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 31 July, 1830. He was graduated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1848, studied law, and subsequently settled in Gettysburg as a journalist, but was compelled, through the failure of his health, to abandon literary work. He published a series of articles in the Philadelphia "Bulletin" in 1851, afterward printed in pamphlet-form, in which he advocated the sale by the state of its main line of public improvements. This, with a similar series published in 1858, was instrumental in effecting that measure, and in the same year he was elected to congress as a Republican, and served from 1859 till 1868. In the latter year he was appointed deputy commissioner of internal revenue, but, after a service of six months, he became clerk of the lower house of congress, and held that office till 1873. His term of service in this office was the longest since the beginning of the government, he was chief of the bureau of engraving and printing in 1877-'8. permanent president of the Republican national convention in 1876, and since 1879 has been engaged in journalism in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania cave him the degree of LB. D., and Princeton that of A. M., in 1877. He has published " Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion" (Washington, 1865) ; "The Political History of the United States during Reconstruction" (1870) ; and a " Hand-Book of Politics" (1872; new ed. every second year) ; and has edited the "New York Tribune Almanac" since 1877. For several years he has been the American editor of the "Almanack de Gotha."