Born November 9, 1809, Frankfort, KY. 

Died December 8, 1877 at Baltimore MD, age 69.

• Cadet at USMA July 1, 1825 to July 1, 1830.  Cullum # 602.
• Adjunct Professor of Mathematics and French, Kenyon College, (OH) 1833-1834.
• Professor of Mathematics, Miami University (OH), 1834-1835.
• Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy, University of Mississippi, 1848-1854.
• Professor of Mathematics, University of Virginia, 1854-1861.
• Founded the Southern Review in Baltimore, 1867.
   

Publications:

• The Philosophy of Mathematics, 1865.
• The USMA library lists five other books, but not this one.

Genealogy:

• He was the oldest of the five children of Moses Owsley Bledsoe (born February 6, 1788 and died November 15, 1851 in Springfield, Illinois) and Sophia Childress Taylor (born October 19, 1792 and died January 19, 1879 in Chicago, two years after her son). His mother was somehow related to president Zachary Taylor, but I do not know how. This would make him related to William Wallace Smith Bliss.
• In 1836 he married Harriet Coxe of Burlington NJ. They were married by her brother-in-law Bishop McIlvane. They had seven children, four of whom survived childhood. Their daughter, Sophia McIlvane Herrick, edited the Southern Review for one year after her father's death.

References:

"Bledsoe, Albert Taylor," The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, vol VIII, pp. 272-273. 1924.

Woodworth, Stephen E., "Bledsoe, Albert Taylor," American National Biography, vol. 3, pp. 11-12. 1999.

E.M., "Bledsoe, Albert Taylor," Dictionary of American Biography, vol. 1., pp. 364-365. Publ. beginning in 1927.

Adrian Rice wrote a piece on Bledsoe when he was at the University of Virginia.

James H. Rodabaugh, A History of Miami University from its Origin to 1845, unpublished Master's Thesis, Miami University, 1933. Dave Kullmann gave me a photocopy of several pages of this as well as photocopies of several letters from the Miami University library.

http://www.lib.muohio.edu/epub/my/miamiyearsIX.html

http://sdsspc1.physics.lsa.umich.edu/amckay/presbios.htm  Daniel Drake and O. M. Mitchell are also mentioned here. 

Arney, Chris, West Point's Scientific 200: Celebration of the Bicentennial. Biographies of 200 of West Point's Most Successful and Influential Mathematicians, Scientists, Engineers, and Technologists, 2002.

It is not known if he is related to Woody Bledsoe, http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/boyer/bledsoe-memorial-resolution.pdf

 

At this juncture the burly form of Dr. Albert Taylor Bledsoe, professor of mathematics, was seen mounting the steps of the rotunda, his great head as usual far in advance of the rest of his body. At once there was silence in the throng. To him the students gave a respectful attention, such as, I fear, in their then mood, they would not have given to Professor Minor. For Dr. Bledsoe was an enthusiastic advocate of Secession, to such an extent that he would not infrequently interlard his demonstration of some difficult problem in differential or integral calculus--for example, the lemniscata of Bernouilli--with some vigorous remarks in the doctrine of States' rights.

At this juncture, however, the big-brained professor spoke to the young men in a somewhat different strain. He began by saying he had no doubt the students who had put up that flag were "the very nicest fellows in the University," but, inasmuch as the State of Virginia had not yet seceded, the Secession flag did not really belong on that rotunda, and he hoped the students themselves would take it down,--"but," he said, "young gentlemen, do it very tenderly."

When I returned to the University I had lost, first and last, six weeks at a critical part of my course. My "tickets," this my second year, were French, German, moral philosophy, and senior mathematics. I determined to drop German and concentrate on the other three schools. And then, finding the "math." examination coming on in ten days, I gave my whole time to preparation for that severe test. Such was the excitement among the students, many of whom were already leaving to join the Army, that study was very difficult, so I betook myself to a little one-room structure at the foot of Carr's Hill on the north side isolated from other buildings, and there studied the differential and integral calculus from twelve to fourteen hours a day for the ten days before examination, Sunday excepted, with the result that on the day of the test I soon developed a severe headache, which nearly cost me my diploma. However, I passed, and later passed also in my other tickets, and received the three diplomas on Commencement day, much to my satisfaction.

I wrote to my mother, June 20th, as follows: "I stand moral philosophy on Tuesday next. To-morrow and next day I am to read two essays in the Moral class,--one on two of Butler's sermons, one on a chapter in the Analogy. I got through French examination very well, I believe, but I am scared about my last math. examination. I find that I mistook one of the questions."  [Pp. 3, 10 of Randolph Harrison McKim (1842-1920), A Soldier's Recollections: Leaves from the Diary of a Young confederate, with an Oration on the Motives and Aims of the Soldiers of the South. Electronic Edition.  http://docsouth.unc.edu/mckim/mckim.html  ]