John Wolcott Phelps (November 13, 1813 – February 1, 1885) was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, an author, an ardent abolitionist and presidential candidate.

He was a strong advocate for use of military means to suppress what he viewed as the Mormon threat to American republicanism.

At the beginning of the Civil War, he resided in Brattleboro, Vermont, where he wrote forceful articles pointing out the danger of the constantly increasing political influence of the slave states.

His regiment supported Commodore David Farragut's fleet in forcing open the Lower Mississippi in April, 1862.

[2] General Phelps was afterward stationed at Camp Parapet in Carrollton, seven miles from New Orleans.

General Phelps was unwilling to employ the Africans as mere laborers, becoming what he viewed as their slave-driver, "having no qualification that way," and offered his resignation on August 21, 1862.

[3] David Dixon Porter who had assisted Commodore Farragut in capturing New Orleans, branded General Phelps "a crazy man," and Butler called him "mad as a March Hare on the 'nigger question.

'"[4] After Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, the federal administration adopted a policy of organizing United States Colored Troops.

General Phelps wanted the commission backdated to the day of his resignation the prior year.

[5]For his organization of and attempt to arm escaped slaves, Confederate President Jefferson Davis issued an order on August 21, 1862, declaring Phelps an outlaw, for having "organized and armed negro slaves for military service against their masters, citizens of the Confederacy."

He authored Phelps Elementary Reader for Public Schools Good Behavior (1876), and translated from the French three books: the Lucien de la Hodde's The Cradle of Rebellions: A History of the Secret Societies of France, The Island of Madagascar: A Sketch, Descriptive and Historical (1885), and The Fables of Florian (1888).

[6][a] His running mate was Samuel C. Pomeroy of Kansas who four years later in 1884 would seek the White House as the presidential candidate of the American Prohibition National Party.

He was vice president of the Vermont Historical Society from 1863 to 1885, and reported on the discovery of mammoth remains in Brattleboro and Richmond.