Roman Catholic Bishop. The brother of Civil War Union General William Starke Rosecrans, he was raised on the Western Reserve frontier, where he was influenced by the religious conversion of his brother and by exposure to the Oxford Movement at the Episcopal seminary he was then attending. After due consideration he was baptized in 1846 as a Roman Catholic at Cold Spring, New York (near the United States Military Academy) with his brother as sponsor, and began study for the priesthood shortly after. He was ordained in Rome, Italt on June 5, 1852 for the diocese of Cincinnati, and was awarded a doctorate in theology at the same time. He performed parish work but also taught in the Cincinnati major seminary. During the American Civil War he exhibited "bold patriotism" for the Union cause, which was considered an unsafe stand in a border region. He was consecrated auxiliary bishop of Cincinnati on March 25, 1862. The Second Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1866 recommended founding a new diocese at Columbus, and Bishop Rosecrans was destined for it almost immediately, receiving his episcopal appointment in March 1868. With few parishoners and fewer dollars, he immediately founded a consecrated cemetery (Mount Calvary) and set out to build a cathedral (its completion took ten years). Religious orders, particularly the Dominican Sisters of the Sacred Heart, arrived to teach the young women of the area. Concern for the poor, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, led to dynamic social programs uncommon for the age. The completion of the cathedral became a constant theme, and a constant stress, of his ministry. Finally, St Joseph's Cathedral was dedicated on October 20, 1878. Following the dedication, and while celebrating the evening hour of vespers with his priests, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died the very next day. A historical marker honoring Bishop Rosecrans was restored by the Granville, Ohio Historical Society in Licking County.