BATTELLE, Gordon, clergyman, born in Newport, Ohio, 14 November 1814; died in camp, 7 January 1862. He was graduated at Allegheny College in 1840, and licensed as a Methodist preacher in 1842. From 1843 to 1851 he was principal of the academy at Clarksburg, Virginia During this time he was, in 1847, ordained deacon, and in 1849 elder, in the Methodist Church. As preacher and presiding elder he occupied most of his time from 1851 to 1860, and was a member of the general conference of 1856 and 1860. His influence in western Virginia was very great, and at the beginning of the civil war in 1861 he was appointed an official visitor to the military camps. The needs of the time demanding attention to the political situation, he became a member of the convention that met 24 November 1861, and framed the constitution of the new state of West Virginia. To him, more largely probably than to any other man, was due the abolition of slavery in that region. In November 1861, he was chosen chaplain of the 1st Virginia regiment, and so continued till his death of typhoid fever after a service of but a few weeks.