[7] His father's ancestors, of Dutch descent, included Philip Schuyler, a general in George Washington's army and a U.S.

[10] The topic of his dissertation is up for debate, though one theory is that it was titled "Wedgwood on English Philology," later published in Bibliotheca Sacra in 1862.

[14] In September 1863 a Russian naval squadron made a long stay in New York harbor, hoping to escape capture by the British Navy in the event of a war between Britain and Russia over the Polish Uprising of 1863.

En route to his post, Schuyler stopped in Baden-Baden to meet Turgenev, who gave him a letter of introduction to Lev Tolstoi.

Tolstoi, who was interested in public education in the United States, asked Schuyler for copies of American primers and school textbooks.

In 1869, the new Administration of President Ulysses Grant removed Schuyler from his post in Moscow and replaced him with a political appointee.

He began writing a major biography of Peter the Great, and frequented the meetings of the Russian Geographic Society in St. Petersburg.

Schuyler and MacGahan traveled from Saratov by sledge to Orenburg, then to Kazala (now Kazalinsk), then to Fort Perovskii (now Kzyl-Orda).

MacGahan went from there to find the Russian Army at Khiva, while Schuyler travelled through Turkistan and Shymkent on to Tashkent, in present-day Uzbekistan, Samarkand, Bukhara and Kokand.

American Faculty members from Robert College collected more information and sent them to the British Minister to Turkey, with no result.

The Bulgarian atrocities were discussed in Parliament on June 26, and the opposition Liberal Party demanded a full investigation.

Fearing a cover-up, the faculty members of Robert College asked the American Minister to Turkey, Horace Maynard, to conduct his own investigation.

By chance, Schuyler's friend from Russia, Januarius MacGahan, arrived in Constantinople to cover the Serbia-Turkish War.

[24] They were joined by a correspondent of Kölnische Zeitung German journalist Karl Schneider (1854–1945) and by a second secretary of the Russian Embassy in Constantinople Georgian prince Aleksi Tsereteli (Aleksei Tseretelev) and Turkish and Bulgarian translator Petar Dimitrov, instructor at the American Robert College in Constantinople.

"[26][27] Schuyler gave a vivid account of what he saw at the village of Batak, three months after the massacres had taken place: ... On every side were human bones, skulls, ribs, and even complete skeletons, heads of girls still adorned with braids of long hair, bones of children, skeletons still encased in clothing.

Here was the spot where the village notable Trandafil was spitted on a pike and then roasted, and where he is now buried; there was a foul hole full of decomposing bodies; here a mill dam filled with swollen corpses; here the school house, where 200 women and children had taken refuge there were burned alive, and here the church and churchyard, where fully a thousand half-decayed forms were still to be seen, filling the enclosure in a heap several feet high, arms, feet, and heads protruding from the stones which had vainly been thrown there to hide them, and poisoning all the air.

Since my visit, by orders of the Mutessarif, the Kaimakam of Tatar Bazardjik was sent to Batak, with some lime to aid in the decomposition of the bodies, and to prevent a pestilence.

[30] The Government of Benjamin Disraeli tried to minimize the massacres, saying that the Bulgarians were equally responsible, but these claims were refuted by Schuyler and MacGahan's eyewitness reports.

[33][34] The Russian Government, moved by Pan-Slavic sentiment and a desire to help the Orthodox Christian Bulgarians, declared war on the Ottoman Empire and invaded Bulgaria in 1877.

When a new president, Rutherford Hayes, took office, Schuyler was subjected to more attacks in the press, accused of bias toward the Bulgarians.

On January 3, 1878, the Turkish Government demanded his recall: "The Porte regarded a continuance of Mr. Schuyler as consul-general at Constantinople as a serious injury to Turkey in its diplomatic relations and in the administration of its affairs in the provinces."

[4] In July 1884, he was out of a job again when the U.S. Congress, as an economy measure, abolished the post of minister to Greece, Romania and Serbia.

The nomination was withdrawn, however, after opposition within the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,[1] and William F. Wharton was eventually appointed and confirmed.