CAMERON, RICHARD (1648?-1680), founder of a Scottish religious sect of Cameronians, which formed the nucleus of the regiment of this name in the British army, was born at Falkland in the county of Fife. He was educated at the village school, and his success was so great that, while still a youth, he was appointed schoolmaster. In this situation he became acquainted with some of the more enthusiastic field-preachers. Persuaded by them he resigned his post and entered the family of Sir Walter Scott of Harden as chaplain and tutor. Refusing to acknowledge the Indulgence, he joined the ranks of the non-conforming ministers, and incited the inhabitants of the southern counties of Scotland to protest openly against the new edict. So formidable was the agitation that the government pronounced illegal all armed assemblages for religious purposes. Cameron took refuge in Holland, where he resided for some time; but in the autumn of 1679 (probably) he returned to Scotland, and once more made himself formidable to the government. Shortly after the defeat of the Covenanters at Bothwell Bridge in that year, Cameron was slain in a skirmish at the Aird’s, or Airs, Moss, fighting bravely at the head of the few troops which he had been able to collect. His prayer before going into battle became a tradition—“Lord spare the green and take the ripe.” After the accession of William III. the survivors were amnestied, and the Cameronian regiment was formed from them.
See Andrew Lang, History of Scotland, vol. iii. (1907); Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (1897), s.v. “Cameronianer”; A. Smellie, Men of the Covenant; Herkless, Richard Cameron; P. Walker, Six Saints of the Covenant.
CAMERON, SIMON (1799-1889), American politician, was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, on the 8th of March 1799. Left an orphan at the age of nine, he early entered journalism, and, in banking and railway enterprises, accumulated a considerable fortune. He became influential in Pennsylvania politics, and in 1845-1849 served in the United States Senate, being elected by a combination of Democratic, Whig and “American” votes to succeed James Buchanan. In 1854, having failed to secure the nomination for senator from the “Know-Nothing” Party, which he had recently joined, he became a leader of the “People’s Party,” as the Republican Party was at first called in Pennsylvania. In 1857 he was elected to the United States Senate as a Republican, despite a Democratic majority in the state legislature, a fact that gave rise to charges of bribery. His prominence as a candidate first for the presidential and then for the vice-presidential nomination in the Republican national convention of 1860 led to his being selected by President Lincoln as secretary of war. His administration of this office at a critical time was marked by his accustomed energy, but unfortunately also by partiality in the letting of government contracts, which brought about his resignation at Lincoln’s request in January 1862 and his subsequent censure by the House of Representatives. Lincoln sent him as minister to Russia, but he returned in November 1862. He again served in the Senate (after 1872, being chairman of the committee on foreign relations) from 1867 until 1877, when he resigned to make room for his son, whose election he dictated. Cameron was one of the ablest political organizers the United States has ever known, and his long undisputed control of Pennsylvania politics was one of the most striking examples of “boss rule” in American history. The definition of an honest politician as “one who when he is bought will stay bought” has been attributed to him. He died on the 26th of June 1889.
His son James Donald Cameron (1833- ) was born at Middletown, Pennsylvania, on the 14th of May 1833, graduated at Princeton in 1852, became actively interested in his father’s banking and railway enterprises, and from 1863 to 1874 was president of the Northern Central railway. Trained in the political school of his father, he developed into an astute politician. From June 1876 to March 1877 he was secretary of war in President Grant’s cabinet. In the Republican national convention of 1876 he took an influential part in preventing the nomination of James G. Elaine, and later was one of those who directed the policy of the Republicans in the struggle for the presidency between Tilden and Hayes. From 1877 until 1897 he was a member of the United States Senate, having been elected originally to succeed his father, who resigned in order to create the vacancy. He was chairman of the Republican national committee during the campaign of 1880.
CAMERON, VERNEY LOVETT (1844-1894), English traveller in Central Africa, was born at Radipole, near Weymouth, Dorsetshire, on the 1st of July 1844. He entered the navy in 1857, served in the Abyssinian campaign of 1868, and was employed for a considerable time in the suppression of the East African slave trade. The experience thus obtained led to his being selected to command an expedition sent by the Royal Geographical Society in 1873, to succour Dr. Livingstone. He was also instructed to make independent explorations, guided by Livingstone’s advice. Soon after the departure of the expedition from Zanzibar, Livingstone’s servants were met bearing the dead body of their master. Cameron’s two European companions turned back, but he continued his march and reached Ujiji, on Lake Tanganyika, in February 1874, where he found and sent to England Livingstone’s papers. Cameron spent some time determining the true form of the south part of the lake, and solved the question of its outlet by the discovery of the Lukuga river. From Tanganyika he struck westward to Nyangwe, the Arab town on the Lualaba previously visited by Livingstone. This river Cameron rightly believed to be the main stream of the Congo, and he endeavoured to procure canoes to follow it down. In this he was unsuccessful, owing to his refusal to countenance slavery, and he therefore turned south-west. After tracing the Congo-Zambezi watershed for hundreds of miles he reached Bihe and finally arrived at the coast on the 28th of November 1875, being the first European to cress Equatorial Africa from sea to sea. His travels, which were published in 1877 under the title Across Africa, contain valuable suggestions for the opening up of the continent, including the utilization of the great lakes as a “Cape to Cairo” connexion. In recognition of his work he was promoted to the rank of commander, made a Companion of the Bath and given the gold medal of the Geographical Society. The remainder of Cameron’s life was chiefly devoted to projects for the commercial development of Africa, and to writing tales for the young. He visited the Euphrates valley in 1878-1879 in connexion with a proposed railway to the Persian Gulf, and accompanied Sir Richard Burton in his West African journey of 1882. At the Gold Coast Cameron surveyed the Tarkwa region, and he was joint author with Burton of To the Gold Coast for Gold (1883). He was killed, near Leighton Buzzard, by a fall from horseback when returning from hunting, on the 24th of March 1894.
A second edition of Across Africa, with new matter and corrected maps, appeared in 1885. A summary of Cameron’s great journey, from his own pen, appears in Dr Robert Brown’s The Story of Africa, vol. ii. pp. 266-279 (London, 1893).
CAMERON OF LOCHIEL, SIR EWEN (1629-1719), Scottish Highland chieftain, was the eldest son of John Cameron and the grandson of Alan Cameron, the head of the clan Cameron. Having lost his father in infancy he passed part of his youth with the marquess of Argyll at Inveraray, leaving his guardian about 1647 to take up his duties as chief of the clan Cameron, a position in which he succeeded his grandfather. In 1653 Lochiel joined the earl of Glencairn in his rising on behalf of Charles II., and after the defeat of this attempt he served the Royalist cause by harassing General Monk. In 1681 he was knighted by Charles II., and in July 1689 he was with Viscount Dundee at Killiecrankie. He was too old to share personally in the Jacobite rising of 1715, but his sympathies were with the Stuarts, and his son led the Camerons at Sheriffmuir. Lochiel, who died in February 1719, is called by Macaulay the “Ulysses of the Highlands.” He was a man of enormous strength and size, and one who met him in 1716 says “he wrung some blood from the point of my fingers with a grasp of his hand.” An incident showing his strength and ferocity in single combat is used by Sir Walter Scott in The Lady of the Lake (canto v.). Lochiel’s son and successor, John, who was attainted for sharing in the rebellion of 1715, died in Flanders in 1748. John’s son Donald, sometimes called “gentle Lochiel,” joined Charles Edward, the Young Pretender, in 1745, was wounded at Culloden, and escaped to France, dying in the same year as his father. The 79th regiment, or Cameron Highlanders, was raised from among the members of the clan in 1793 by Sir Alan Cameron (1753-1828).