Adelbert (/əˈdɛlbərt/ ə-DEL-bərt)[2] Ames was born in 1835 in the town of Rockland (then known as East Thomaston), located in Knox County, Maine.

On July 1, 1856, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York; he graduated five years later in May 1861, fifth in his class of forty-five.

[9] During the Battle of First Bull Run that July, Ames was seriously wounded in the right thigh but refused to leave his guns.

Hunt, chief of the artillery of the Army of the Potomac, and he received a brevet promotion to lieutenant colonel on July 1.

During the Union defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg that winter, Ames led his regiment in one of the last charges on December 13 against Marye's Heights.

Probably as a result of this staff duty and his proximity to the influential Meade,[citation needed] Ames was promoted to brigadier general in the Union Army on May 20, 1863, two weeks following the Battle of Chancellorsville.

On July 2, the second day of battle, Ames's battered division bore the brunt of the assault on East Cemetery Hill by Maj. Gen. Jubal A.

After the battle, Ames reverted to brigade command with a brevet promotion to colonel in the regular army.

In 1864, Ames's division, now part of the X Corps of the Army of the James, served under Maj. Gen. Benjamin Franklin Butler in the Bermuda Hundred Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg.

During the two years following his service in the Army of the Potomac, Ames shifted between brigade and division command (and even led his corps on two occasions).

He led the successful assault in the Second Battle of Fort Fisher (commanding the 2nd Division, XXIV Corps), accompanying his men into the formidable coastal fortress as most of his staff were shot down by Confederate snipers.

[14] During his administration, he took several steps to advance the rights of formerly enslaved people, appointing the first black officeholders in state history.

White supremacist terrorism and violence were prevalent in the state, one of the last to comply with Reconstruction, but a general election was held during his tenure in 1869.

[4] Ames battled James Lusk Alcorn, a former Confederate general, for control of the Republican Party, which then had mostly black voters.

The Radicals and most black voters supported Ames, and Alcorn won the votes of scalawags, moderate Whiggish whites.

[16] His appointments included some so-called scalawags and a few former Confederates, but he was never happy in Mississippi, and much of the time, his wife and family remained in the North, where the weather was cooler and the socioeconomic conditions were less unpleasant.

A riot in Yazoo county drove out the Republican sheriff and resulted in some blacks and party officers being lynched.

The Clinton Riot on September 4 ended with white Democratic paramilitaries riding over the county, shooting every black person they chanced upon.

[19] Ames, unable to organize a state militia in time, signed a peace treaty with Democratic leaders.

[20] That November, Democrats terrorized a large part of the Republican vote into staying home, driving voters from the polls with shotguns and cannons, and gaining firm control of both houses of the legislature.

The state legislature, convening in 1876, drew up articles of impeachment against Ames; with a five-to-one majority and deeply hostile feelings towards him, their investigations "failed to trace a dollar of unearned money to his pockets," one reporter noted.

Rather than face an impeachment trial that would entail great expense, Ames's lawyers made a deal: once the legislature had dropped all charges, he would resign his office, which occurred on March 29, 1876.

[22] After leaving office, Ames settled briefly in Northfield, Minnesota, where he joined his father and brother in their flour-milling business.

During his residence there, in September 1876, Jesse James and his gang of former Confederate guerrillas raided the town's bank, primarily because of Ames's (and controversial Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler's) investment in it, but their attempt to rob it ended in catastrophic failure.

[24] Several years afterward, he retired from business pursuits in Lowell but continued in real estate and entertainment projects in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Florida.

Volunteers in March 1865, while Ames had been promoted to the permanent rank of brigadier general in the Regular Army about the same period.)

The United Spanish War Veterans established Camp 19, General Adelbert Ames Post, in Lowell, Massachusetts.

In August 2010, Sullivan's attorney brought forth a proposal to Tewksbury's board of selectmen for modifications to the Ames Hill Castle, to fall under the Massachusetts Comprehensive Permit Act: Chapter 40B, which would allow him to maintain the property as a multi-unit rental legally.

[29] In November, local developer Marc Ginsburg purchased the Castle and surrounding plot from Sullivan for $360,000, just as the delay expired.