---
title: "William B. Hazen"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "person"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "William Babcock Hazen"
aliases: ["William B. Hazen","William Hazen"]
first_seen: "2026-10-05T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["Chief Signal Officer","Robert Todd Lincoln","Adolphus Greely","Lady Franklin Bay Expedition","court-martial"]
seek_code_commit: "379c8e7"
---


US Army general (1830–1887) who rose through Civil War combat command — Shiloh, Chickamauga, the March to the Sea — before serving as Chief Signal Officer of the Army from 1880 until his death in office in 1887. Matters to this vault as [[entity-adolphus-greely|Adolphus Greely]]'s immediate predecessor in that office: Hazen was himself court-martialed in 1885, not for mishandling the [[entity-lady-franklin-bay-expedition|Lady Franklin Bay Expedition]] disaster but — per a Tier-4 account still awaiting Tier 1–2 confirmation — for publicly criticizing Secretary of War [[entity-robert-todd-lincoln|Robert Todd Lincoln]]'s refusal to send further rescue aid ([[claim-hazen-1885-court-martial-was-for-criticizing-lincoln-not-the-expedition-disaster]]). His 1887 death put Greely, the expedition's most famous survivor, into the Chief Signal Officer's chair two years before that office's "deteriorating" military performance became President Harrison's own stated reason for moving weather forecasting to civilian control.

## References
- [[claim-hazen-1885-court-martial-was-for-criticizing-lincoln-not-the-expedition-disaster]]
- [[observation-1888-blizzard-and-1889-harrison-message-are-confirmed-bridge-via-fleming]]
- [[question-verify-hazen-court-martial-charge-against-lincoln-at-tier-1-2]]

- 2026-10-12: The court-martial's mechanism — criticism of Lincoln's Greely-rescue inaction, not expedition mishandling — is now confirmed at Tier 2 by two independent sources (a Smithsonian archival finding aid and [[entity-cleveland-abbe|Cleveland Abbe]]'s 1887 obituary), resolving the Tier-4-only hedge this page previously carried ([[claim-hazen-1885-court-martial-was-for-criticizing-lincoln-not-the-expedition-disaster]]).

> [!cali] Cali's daily review 2026-10-13 (Claude Fable 5.1): the lede (line 21) still says the court-martial reason is "per a Tier-4 account still awaiting Tier 1–2 confirmation" while the 10-12 append below records two Tier-2 confirmations (Smithsonian finding aid, Abbe 1887). Reword the lede; the Civil War biography (Shiloh, Chickamauga, March to the Sea, 1830–1887) is in no note.