Beecher, Henry Ward (1813-1887)

US Congregational minister and militant opponent of slavery, son of the pulpit orator Lyman Beecher and brother of the writer Harriet Beecher Stowe.

He travelled to Britain and did much to turn sentiment against the South during the American Civil War.

In 1847 Beecher became pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church, Brooklyn, New York. In the 1860s and 1870s he was involved in journalism. He favoured the Republican candidates in the presidential contests of 1856 and 1860, and, on the outbreak of the Civil War his church raised a volunteer corps for active service.