Joe Wells: A Slave and His Confederate Master Go To War

Remembering Our Civil War Heritage and Heroes:

1861-1865

Joe Wells: A Slave and His Confederate Master Go To War

By Ken Robison

The River Press February 26, 2014

This continues a monthly series commemorating the 150^th Anniversary of the Civil War and the veterans that came to Montana after the war. This issue features the fascinating story of a slave who followed his master into service of the Confederacy before coming to Montana’s gold mines to make and lose his mining successes.  Descendants of Montana Civil War veterans are encouraged to send their stories and photos to mtcivilwar@yahoo.com.

When General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox in April 1865, thirty-six African-Americans were listed on the Confederate paroles. Most served as servants, musicians, cooks, teamsters, or blacksmiths. Throughout the Civil War thousands of blacks accompanied Confederate Army regiments though only a handful were accepted and armed as combat soldiers until the last months of the war. The Confederate fighting force was white but much of its support was black.

One young slave, Joseph Wells, went into the Confederate Army early in the war as a “body servant” for his master, Colonel Benjamin G. Wells. He would not have worn the “gray,” yet on occasion he may have fought alongside his master though we simply don’t know. We do know that Joseph remained in company with his master throughout the war before coming to Montana Territory.

In Joseph’s own words, Col. Wells was “a confederate soldier, and I went to war with him, waiting on him during his service in the army. He was with General [Sterling] Price. The first place we fought was at Blue Mill Landing. We had a little skirmish there. We had a scrap at Lexington, Missouri, where General Price, with 40,000 men, dislodged 3,000 Union soldiers, but not until he cut off the water supply. We had brushes at Elk Grove and Oak Hill and a battle right at Vicksburg. I went with the old man to Texas, from there we returned home” to Buchanan County, Missouri.

The slave that was to become Joseph Wells was born in 1838, the “property” of prominent John Fry of Lexington, Kentucky. His mother was sold shortly after his birth so another slave woman raised him. When he was ten years old Mr. Fry took Joseph with the Fry family to live near St. Joseph, Buchanan County, Missouri. The U.S. Census in 1850 recorded 57-year-old farmer John Fry living in Buchanan County with his wife Mary, four sons, and one daughter. The Slave Schedule of that census listed one 12 year-old Black Male slave (Joseph) in the household, and some 25 other slaves spread around other parts of Missouri.

When John Fry died his widow married Colonel Benjamin G. Wells in 1856. The U.S. Census of 1860 showed the family of Wells with one 22 year-old male slave living at Rushville in Buchanan County, and one year later off to the War of Southern Independence went Col. Wells and his young slave. While Missouri did not secede to join the Confederacy, a large segment of the population centered in northern Missouri and Little Dixie along the Missouri River favored secession and many men joined the Missouri State Guard under General Sterling Price to seize control of the state.

In September 1861, the pro-secession State Guard were ordered to recruit more troops from northwestern Missouri and concentrate at Lexington. Col. Benjamin Wells raised a company in Rush Township in southwestern Buchanan County and with other recruits departed to join Gen. Price. Some 4,000 State Guard troops including Col. Wells passed through Liberty to cross the Missouri River at Blue Mills Landing and proceed eastward to Lexington. A Union force of 600 men under Lt. Col. John Scott was sent to intercept the State Guard troops at Blue Mills Landing, arriving after most of the State Guard had already crossed the Missouri. Scott’s troops moved to engage the remaining 600 State Guard soldiers, including Col. Wells and his servant, who were positioned in the brush on both sides of the road leading to the landing. In mid afternoon on September 17^th, Col. Scott’s troops marched into the ambush. In the one-hour skirmish that followed Price’s men held the advantage with 18 Union soldiers killed and 80 wounded, at the cost of just 3 State Guard soldiers killed and 18 wounded.

With this minor victory at Blue Mill Landing, also known as the Battle of Liberty, the northwest Missouri troops proceeded on to join General Sterling Price at Lexington, on the Missouri River twenty miles east of Kansas City. This First Battle of Lexington, known as the Battle of the Hemp Bales, was an engagement from September 13 to 20, 1861 between the Missouri State Guard and a Union garrison of some 3,500 men under Col James A. Mulligan holding the town. Over the next several days General Price’s Guard received ammunition wagons, other supplies and reinforcements including those from Buchanan County.

By the 18^th, the State Guard now numbered more than 15,000 men, and Gen. Price ordered an assault on Lexington. The State Guard moved forward into the face of heavy artillery fire, pushing Union troops back into their inner defenses. On the morning of the 20^th, Price’s men advanced behind mobile breastworks, made of dampened hemp that was immune to Union shells. By early afternoon, Col. Mulligan’s men stacked their arms and surrendered. Lexington, the Union stronghold had fallen, bolstering southern sentiment and briefly consolidating Confederate control of the Missouri Valley.

Further details of the activities of Col. Wells and his servant Joseph are sketchy although for the rest of the Civil War though they apparently remained part of the Missouri State Guard. Gen. Price with his men formally joined the Confederate cause in Neosho, Missouri on October 30, 1861. Despite his early victories in Missouri, Gen. Price did not have dominant popular support to hold the state in the face of Union determination to control this vital Border State.

By early 1862, Union forces had pushed Price out of Missouri, and with their defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge in northwestern Arkansas March 6-8, Confederate hopes of occupying Missouri ended. For most of 1862-1863, the Missouri State Guard fought small skirmishes in Missouri and major battles in Arkansas and Mississippi. Missouri remained threatened by guerrilla warfare from southern bushwhacker raids throughout the war.

Although Joseph Wells does not mention whether Col. Wells and he participated in the Battle of Pea Ridge, he does state that they “had brushes at Elk Grove and Oak Hill and a battle right at Vicksburg.” Wells’s mention of Oak Hill is intriguing. The first major battle of the Trans-Mississippi was the Battle of Wilson’s Creek fought on August 10, 1861, near Springfield, Missouri between Union forces and the Missouri State Guard. That battle is also known as the Battle of Oak Hills. The battle led to the death of brilliant Union commander Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon and the retreat of Union forces resulting in the battle also being called the “Bull Run of the West.” Col. Wells’s role, if any, in the battle is not known.

During the decisive Vicksburg Campaign from May 19 to July 4, 1863, Missouri infantry and cavalry fought in the 1^st and 2^nd Brigades of Major General John S. Bowen’s Division of the Confederate Army. As Gen. Ulysses S. Grant began to move to capture Vicksburg, Gen. Bowen was assigned a division in Gen. Pemberton’s Army defending Vicksburg. After uniting with Pemberton’s Army, Gen. Bowen’s Division fought at the battle of Champion Hill, where their counterattack almost split Grant’s army in half. When the rest of Pemberton’s army failed to support Bowen’s attack, his Division was forced to retreat. Bowen’s Division suffered defeat at the Battle of Big Black River Bridge, retreated to Vicksburg, and took part in the final defense of Vicksburg. The surrender of Vicksburg July 4, 1863 was a devastating blow to the Confederacy. Not only were 2,872 men killed and wounded and 29,495 taken prisoner, but the Confederacy strategically lost control of the Mississippi River and was cut in two.

Details about the end of the war and surrender of Col. Wells and Joseph are sketchy. Joe Wells claimed that toward the end of the war, “I went with the old man to Texas, from there we returned home.”  It is likely by May 1865, Joseph Wells, now a freedman, returned briefly to St. Joseph, Missouri. There he was warned by his former mistress to leave because of his Confederate Army service. In turn, Col. Wells offered Joseph a span of mules worth $500, a wagon, and provisions for a year if he would stay and haul timber from the river bottoms. But Joseph listened to Mrs. Wells.

Like many white Confederate soldiers, Joseph headed west in early summer 1865, stopping along the Overland Stage Line near today’s Cheyenne, Wyoming to work as a cook before proceeding on to California. Wells then decided to move on to Denver, Colorado, where he worked at odd jobs. From there he move northward to Alder Gulch, Montana Territory, to try his hand at placer gold mining, with some success accumulating $10,000.

By 1870 Joe Wells lived at Fort Shaw, a servant working for Brevet Major S. A. Russell, 7^th Infantry Regiment, helping care for Russell’s four-year-old son Louis. Six years later, Joe Wells stampeded to the Black Hills gold rush, where he claimed that “Nigger Hill,” was named for him.

The Negro Hill district, as it is now known, is a section in the western part of the Black Hills that derived its name from a mountain that rears its head some 6,400 feet above sea level, and whose top is high above the surrounding peaks of the rugged neighborhood. The steep slopes of Negro Hill form the heads of various gulches—Bear, Mallory, Negro, Sand and Beaver—from which hundreds of thousands of dollars in placer gold were taken.

Negro Hill and Negro Gulch were named for several African Americans, including Joseph Wells, who owned an immensely rich placer claim from which they took a fortune during the summer of 1876. Four of these black miners took out $1,700 in a single day, hauling their gravel hundreds of yards to wash it. Several other black miners built a dam to accumulate water for sluicing and washed out $1,500 in one remarkable half day.

The reputation of these black miners was so colorful that the mountain was named to commemorate them. These were the first placer gold strikes discovered in the Northern Black Hills in the summer of 1876, and led to a stampede to the area. Joe Wells successfully mined Negro Gulch and accumulated $30,000. Unfortunately in just three months he squandered his riches, drinking and gambling before moving on to Deadwood, Dakota Territory.

In the early 1880s, Joe Wells returned to Montana to lived in poverty and ill health in Billings. Some years later he regained his strength and went back to mining with six placer claims on Williams Creek on the Shoshone Reservation.

By the early 1900s Joseph Wells arrived in Missoula to become a favorite of Missoulian reporters. In August 1910 the Missoulian told “Uncle Joe’s” story. Joe claimed an age of 120 years, perhaps identifying in his mind with the age of his older former master Col. Wells. His actual age was about 72 years. Other details of his story ring true and are consistent with facts that can be checked. He told about his early years in slavery, his service in the war with his master, and his migration westward.

The Missoulian reporter assessed Uncle Joe:  

   “There is no more unique citizen in western Montana than Joe Wells. The general impression among his acquaintances, both white and black, is that he has slipped a cog or two on his age . . . His warped limbs, his wrinkled face, and his white hair indicate that he is close to the century mark. In appearance he is scrawny and sharp. . . He is as cunning as a fox.”

In the interview the reporter quizzed Wells about his Black Hills experiences:

   “’I went into the Black hills and crossed to Nigger gulch, where I lifted $30,000 inside a month.’

   “’What! You took out $30,000 worth of gold?’

   “’Yes, sir, and the gulch was named after me. I had $30,000 in clean cash at one time.’

   “’What did you do with it?’

   “’Squandered it,’ said he, indifferently as he looked down at his frayed trousers. ‘In them days I did not know the value of money. I drank and gambled my $30,000 away in three months.’

   “’Were you not afraid somebody would rob you.’

   “’Not a bit. I carried the best of arms and could use them like a man. I went with an English bull [Dog pocket revolver], a dangerous pistol, up my sleeve all the time.’

   “’Where did you keep your money?’

   “’With me. I wore two pairs of pants, one over the other, and had secret pockets. My outer garments were of buckskin.’

   “’What sort of gambling did you do?’

   “’Faro. That was the game them days.’

   “’How long ago was that?’

   “’Thirty years.’

   “’Soon after the Nigger gulch find I went to Billings. I was broke, and sick. For two years I lay there in the Sisters’ hospital. Every now and then I would tell the nurses that I was burning daylight. As soon as I was able to travel I secured me a horse—a white one—and went to Copper mountain. After three weeks of prospecting I sprung off to Shoshone reservation and located six claims on Williams creek. I have them yet.’

   “’Some fellow tried to get them out of me but I told him that I was from Missouri. He was tricky.’

   “’What are you doing now?’

   “’I am on the way to Flathead to prospect. If I get up there, and find anything I will go to work.’

   “’How do you go about it?

   “’I have done my work along. I cut the timber, and go in with my wheel-barrow. Give me a bit of giant powder and I can do the rest. I know how to handle that, boy.’”

  

In the opinion of the Missoulian reporter, “There is no more unique citizen in western Montana than Joe Wells. The general impression among his acquaintances, both white and black, is that he has slipped a cog or two on his age but all agree that he is far beyond the three score and ten milepost. His warped limbs, his wrinkled face, and his white hair indicate that he is close to the century mark. In appearance he is scrawny and sharp. On his face there stands, at irregular intervals, bunches of whiskers--sagebrush—and on his head a scanty stand of hair. On the point of his little black chin there hangs, like a bit of Florida moss, a tuft of beard done in a three-stand plait. The Missoulian man, when trying to locate him, asked a neighbor if she had seen him. She looked into space, in an effort to recall him, but the moment the twig of whiskers was mentioned, she smiled, and said: ‘He’s right there—next door.’

   “Two friends Joe Wells keeps near him, a pocket magnifying glass to help in his search for gold, and Nailer, a big, shaggy dog. With these he roams in search of a fortune. The old fellow’s heart is full of hope and so long as he is able to move he will hunt for gold. News of strikes at Dixon has reached his ear and he is eager to get back in harness.

   “’Oh, but if I could make one more lucky strike,’ is his song.

   “If Joe Wells were to step into a Kentucky street some old-time southern man would greet him: ‘Good morning Uncle Joe, how are you?’ and he would respond: ‘Thank you, Marse John; poly thank Gawd.’ But out here, he is as gay and chipper as a tree frog, and knows all of the up-to-date vernacular. He is as cunning as a fox.”

Ten years later in 1920 Joe Wells remained in Missoula renting a house with a white lodger who worded as a barber. In December 1922 Joe Wells died at St. Patrick’s Hospital in Missoula. His death was noted with a short obituary with more exaggerations and a photograph published by the Montana Newspaper Association on January 8, 1923:

   “Missoula Centenarian Dies. Joseph Well, colored, once winner of the Kentucky derby, believed to be the oldest inhabitant in Missoula, died at St. Patrick’s hospital a few days ago.

   “‘Uncle Joe’ as he was best known in the city, claimed to have been born at Louisville, Ky., in 1807, placing his age at 115 years. His mother, a slave in the southern city, was sold shortly after his birth and . . . [he was] reared by another colored woman. The aged negro often narrated the vicissitudes of his fortune during early slavery times, the stirring days of rebellion and the new era following the Civil war. He made many trips up and down the ‘ol’ Mississippi’ with traders . . .

   “His story of once winning the Kentucky derby as [a Negro] jockey, strapped to the back of the winner of the blue-grass classic, was one worthy of literary prominence. To have heard old ‘Uncle Joe’ tell it himself in his own mannerisms was still more interesting.“

Oh, to have been able to interview Joseph Wells, learn more details, and probe some of his stories. From the first Kentucky Derby in 1875 until Jim Crow laws ended it about 1900, almost all Derby jockeys were African American. Thirteen of the fifteen riders in the first Kentucky Derby were black jockeys, and fifteen of the first twenty-eight runnings of the Derby featured blacks. The names of these early day black sports superstars are readily available . . . and, sadly, Joseph Wells is not among them.

Former slave Uncle Joe Wells and his dog Nailer on the streets

of Missoula shortly before his death. (Courtesy of The Missoulian) 

Despite his exaggerations, Joseph Wells, slave, Confederate service soldier, gold miner, servant, rich man, poor man, drinker and carouser, and finally kindly “Uncle Joe” the story teller, lived a more than full life before passing on in Missoula December 16, 1922. His burial location is unknown.

Ken Robison is a local historian and author of Montana Territory and the Civil War: A Frontier Forged on the Battlefield.

The Adventures of “Sandbar” Frank D. Brown

Remembering Our Civil War Heritage and Heroes:

1861-1865

“Sandbar” Frank D. Brown: From Plantation Boyhood and Confederate Soldier and Marine to Adventures Galore on the Montana Frontier

By Ken Robison

For The River Press

January 29, 2014

This continues a monthly series commemorating the 150^th Anniversary of the Civil War and the veterans that came to Montana after the war. This issue features the colorful exploits of “Sandbar” Brown who blazed a trail from his family’s plantation in Virginia to boyhood service in the Confederate Army, the War Department, and Marines to adventures on the upper Missouri as a miner and leader in the United Confederate Veterans.  Descendants of Montana Civil War veterans are encouraged to send their stories and photos to mtcivilwar@yahoo.com.

John Francis Dean “Sandbar” Brown, a man of many names and adventures, fought for the South in the Civil War and left an indelible mark when he came to Montana Territory at war’s end. Born November 24, 1845 to socially and politically prominent parents in Bedford City, Nelson County, Virginia, Frank’s father Ludwell Harrison Brown’s great grandfather was Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and his mother, Margaret Washington McClelland’s great grandfather Richard Henry Lee also signed the Declaration.

Young John Brown was reared on Montezuma plantation in the rolling hills of Virginia’s Piedmont, and he little realized he was destined for remarkable pioneer experiences in the West. In 1850 John’s father worked as a civil engineer, and the family owned one household slave, Sarah Read age 30. His father died in 1859, and two years later in June 1861 at age fifteen John F. Brown joined Company D, 25^th Battalion Virginia Volunteers, known as the Richmond Battalion. The 25^th Battalion was responsible for local defense of the Richmond area and on constant guard duty throughout the city, capital of the Confederacy. While Brown’s enlistment in 1861 is documented, the 25^th Battalion apparently was not organized until August 1862, thus his first year of service is unclear.

In November 1861 Private Brown was transferred to the Quartermaster Department under Capt. James R. McClelland, and the following April he was assigned to the Confederate War Department as Orderly under his cousin Secretary of War James A. Seddon.

In early 1863 Private Brown returned to the Richmond City Battalion. With the Union controlling much of coastal Virginia and North Carolina, inland cities like Richmond were starving. Much of the cropland in central Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley went unattended as soldiers left their farms to fight for their country. The rail system was overtaxed supporting the fighting forces, and food that did make it to Richmond was sold by merchants and speculators at rocketing high prices.

With the ranks of police depleted, order broke down. In the words of historian Michael Chesson, “Wartime Richmond had become a city of strangers and camp followers, some with criminal intent.” The Battle of Antietam, known as the Battle of Sharpsburg in the South, during General Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of Northern soil had ended badly for the Confederacy, providing a wake-up call for those who thought the war would soon end. The winter leading into 1863 had gone badly in Richmond with a devastating explosion of a major ordnance plant in March killing 45 women and girls working there followed by heavy snow and ice and a breakdown in the city’s water works.

On March 27, President Jefferson Davis blundered when he called on Confederates everywhere to spend the day in prayer and fasting. A clerk in the War Department wrote, “Fasting in the midst of famine! May God save this people!” Angry women took to the streets protesting against hoarders and grain speculators. Women from within the city and nearby counties descended on the Confederate Capital. The situation rapidly escaladed into violence. The Richmond City Battalion deployed to protect the Capitol. With President Davis on the scene, in the face of threats of troop commanders to fire on the rioters, the women fled with no shots being fired. Artillery was brought in to position to defend the Capitol and business district. The Confederate Army was placed on alert, but a second day of demonstrations was called off and the authorities rounded up riot leaders.

Secretary of War Seddon pleaded with city newspapers to suppress the story and telegraph operators to remain silent, yet the suppression did not work. Brief but clear reports of “Bread Riot” appeared in print, and city residents, both white and black, knew what had happened.

In September 1863, Private John Brown was discharged from the 25^th Battalion. He immediately re-enlisted as a Confederate Marine. The Confederate States Marine Corps (CSMC), a branch of the Confederate States Navy, was established in March 1861. By September 1862 its manpower was authorized at 1026 enlisted men. The organization of the corps began at Montgomery, Alabama, and was completed at Richmond. Throughout the war the CSMC headquarters and main training facilities were located at Camp Beall on Drewry’s Bluff and at the Gosport Shipyard in Norfolk.

The Confederate Marines were modeled after the U.S. Marine Corps that had a tradition as a fine and well-disciplined organization. The CSMC never approached its authorized manpower and in October 1864 listed only 539 officers and men. CS Marine Corps units were stationed at naval bases and with garrisons at shore fortifications like Fort Fisher in North Carolina. Marines served on Confederate warships such as the open-ocean raider CSS Alabama. From mid 1862, the CS Marine Corps was broken into squad-sized units and dispersed throughout the South and aboard CS ships.

Private Brown served with a Marine Corps unit on the Steamer Powhatan, commanded by Lieut. William Severe. The Powhatan served as a tender to the ironclad Virginia until its officers destroyed the boat at the surrender of Richmond in April 1865. Brown’s Marine regiment assembled at Drewry’s Bluff on the James River, where they surrendered to the 15^th Pennsylvania Regiment and were taken to Petersburg and paroled.

Defeated, but unbowed, Frank D. Brown would remain an unreconstructed Confederate for the rest of his life. About this time, Brown dropped “John” from his name through distaste for the Union Army’s marching song “John Brown’s Body Lies A-Mouldering in the Grave. . .”

The Civil War brought desolation and insecurity to the southland and under these conditions the young veteran of the Confederacy decided to leave Virginia and seek his fortune in the West. At the time of his parole, Private Brown was given rations and transportation to St. Louis, Missouri. He later wrote a short account of his decision:

   “I was a young Confederate soldier after Lee’s surrender. I went to St. Louis and entered the employ of the American Fur company and arrived at Fort Union Feb. 12, 1865. Of an adventurous disposition, I went out of the service of the company the March following, with two halfbreed Frenchmen, to trap beaver and otter on the lower tributaries of the Yellowstone. I engaged in this work more or less profitably, but being bothered by the Sioux, went over to the Judith and Musselshell, where I traded at Fort Hawley and Fort Benton.

During his long life Brown gave varying account of his activities in his early years in Montana. Perhaps Brown didn’t proceed overland up the Missouri to Fort Union until February 1866, and on to Fort Benton in the spring of that year. More likely, however, on his arrival at St. Louis, the Northwest Fur Company hired him, and he boarded the first company steamboat Hattie May to make its way up the Missouri River to the Montana mining frontier. His claim of employment with the American Fur Company no doubt blurred over the years. During the summer of 1865 the Upper Missouri operations of that company had been purchased by the Northwest Fur Company, thus Brown likely was hired and received passage up the river as an employee of the new company.

Reaching Fort Union on September 17, 1865, Frank Brown proceeded overland to Fort Benton arriving in December of that year. In Montana Territory he worked as wolfer, wood hawk, fur trapper, scout, and placer miner on the Yellowstone, Musselshell, Judith and Missouri rivers. In 1872 he was a scout under Colonel Eugene Baker at Fort Ellis on an expedition to protect surveyors of the first Northern Pacific survey up the Yellowstone River. In Brown’s words:

   “Felix Ingrem and myself were to furnish meat to the survey outfit of Colonel Hayden. We had our first brush with the Indians on a slough—an inclosed piece of land opposite the mouth of Pryor’s Fork, and it is my honest opinion that had it not been for the infantry, who constituted a part of the military command, there would have been another massacre to add to that of Fort Smith and Kearny.

   “As I have been in every valley tributary to the Yellowstone, I am familiar with the rich alluvial soils, its wealth of grass lands and its mineral possibilities. From 25-Yard creek to the Bad Lands, this great and noble river, dotted with islands ever green with cottonwood groves swiftly pursues its way to mix its pure waters with the muddy current of the Missouri, ever whispering of romance and tragedy, amid silences unbroken save by the lowing of countless herds of game, or the scream of thousands of wolves.

   “I have lain in my buffalo robes and looked up at the starlit heavens and whitened crests of lofty enclosing mountains, and wondered why the emigrant should wheel his way to more distant lands to find the home he sought. The Indian alone was the obstacle, and he would finally be removed by the tide of emigration flowing up the Platte and Missouri. And I am grateful to know that I have lived to see the day which I predicted would come, where the trails had given way to the railroad, where the schoolhouse, church, village and city invite you to tarry and abide, where fenced lands destroyed the primeval serenity. Prior’s Gap, and the immense area of lowly well watered valleys, within the last 50 years, have given homes to thousands.”

Frank Brown told varying stories of how he earned the nickname “Sandbar” Brown. At times his story was located on the Yellowstone River while other times the incident occurred on the Upper Missouri. Perhaps the most plausible account came when asked by a newspaperman to explain the peculiar significance of the name, Brown replied:

   “It was in 1866, with two other men I was riding along the Missouri, about seven miles above the Marias [River]. One of the men was across a ridge and my other partner had crossed the river and had disappeared from view.

    “I forded over a long sandbar, got the three horses hidden in some willows and backtracked, as we knew some Indians were following us. Hidden behind some sand, I saw three Bloods [Kainai Blackfoot] following our tracks. They had their guns ready, and you know Bloods never gave a white man a chance. They always killed from ambush. As the first Indian got over to the bar, I fired and he dropped. My partner heard the show and came running back. I got the second Indian and my partner got the third. We scalped them and threw their bodies in the river. I guess that’s how I got ‘Sandbar’ tacked to my name.”

In 1873 Andrew Jackson Davis hired Brown to locate mines in the early days of Butte, and his success in locating the Lexington and other substantial mines contributed to the early success of both the mining camp and Davis’ personal fortune.  That same year Brown married Anna Elizabeth Lentz in Helena in December. They had eight children: Francis Dean, Anna, Edward Wilhelm, Amy Frances, Albertina Nettie, Minnie Madeline, Angus, and James A. Murray. Francis Dean, Anna, and Angus died before age three. Mrs. Anna Lentz Brown passed away October 6, 1914.

Brown moved to Philipsburg in 1878 to join the Northwestern Mining Company. He owned and edited the Philipsburg Mail newspaper, and for the next forty years, he managed and developed many placer and quartz mines in the area.

Brown attended all Democratic state conventions for four decades, though he never ran for public office. He was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution and served proudly as Major General in the United Confederate Veterans, commanding the Northwest Division for Montana, Idaho, Washington, the Dakotas, and Wyoming. He was known as a brilliant conversationalist and orator.

An active member of the Society of Montana Pioneers, “Sandbar” Brown was elected its historian in 1908 and its secretary in 1923. He played a key role in locating and promoted monuments to Lieutenant John Mullan and the Mullan Road, an early wagon road from Fort Benton to Fort Walla Walla, Washington Territory. The marble Mullan Monuments begin on the Levee in Fort Benton and extend across Montana in key points along the famed Mullan Military Wagon Road.

In his later years, Brown ranched and sold real estate and insurance. At the age of 85, Private Frank D. “Sandbar” Brown, veteran of the Confederate Army and Marines, and Major General in the United Confederate Veterans, passed on in Missoula on January 16, 1931. The old Confederate soldier rest today in Philipsburg Cemetery.

Ken Robison is a local historian and author of Montana Territory and the Civil War: A Frontier Forged on the Battlefield.

Captain Samuel A. Swiggett: From a Civil War Prison To the Montana Legislature [Part 1]

Remembering Our Civil War Heritage and Heroes:

1861-1865

Captain Samuel A. Swiggett: From a Civil War Prison

 To the Montana Legislature [Part 1]

By Ken Robison

For The River Press

December 25, 2013

This continues a monthly series commemorating the 150^th Anniversary of the Civil War and the veterans that came to Montana after the war. This issue features the first of two parts highlighting the adventures of Captain Samuel A. Swiggett who survived a Confederate prisoner of war camp to be elected to the Montana Legislature.  Descendants of Montana Civil War veterans are encouraged to send their stories and photos to mtcivilwar@yahoo.com.

Bolstered by an indomitable spirit of optimism, Samuel A. Swiggett survived thirteen months in Confederate prisoner of war camps and left an impressive record of achievement in territorial Montana. Life simply could not keep this good man down.

Samuel was born in Dorchester County, Maryland, May 19, 1834, the son of William H. and Henrietta M. Hurst Swiggett. When he was thirteen years of age, his mother died, and left on his own he became a tailor’s apprentice. In 1852, Samuel moved west to Cambridge City, Indiana and three years later on to Iowa, where he settled at Blakesburg, Wapello County. In 1856 he married Eliza H. Van Cleave of Indiana. Working as a tailor and postmaster with a small general store, on August 8, 1862, Samuel Swiggett enlisted for a three-year term and was mustered in to the 36^th Iowa Infantry Regiment at Camp Lincoln, Keokuk, on October 4^th. Active in recruiting, he was elected captain of Company B. Capt. Swiggett served three years and one month in Arkansas and Tennessee, and his army experience proved of extraordinary hardship and suffering.

Much of what we know today about the 36^th Iowa Infantry and Captain S. A. Swiggett come from a small volume he published in 1895, while he was living in Montana. This book entitled The Bright Side of Prison Life makes his personal experiences and that of his regiment the keynote of the narrative. He wrote about the good and the bad of the war and prison life, filtered by his sunny optimism.

The men of the 36^th Iowa were first issued old Austrian and Belgian smoothbore muskets with "sword" bayonets, but these antiques were eventually replaced with more effective Enfield rifled muskets. Following basic training at Camp Lincoln, the regiment departed Keokuk on November 1, 1862 aboard two steamboats for St. Louis to await corps and division assignment and to continue training.

At St. Louis, the 36^th Iowa went into garrison at Benton Barracks. They were attached to the 13^th Corps, Army of Tennessee, and commenced drill by brigade and division. On  December 20, 1862 they embarked a steamboat for the federal garrison at Helena, Arkansas. On board the steamer Captain Swiggett and his men were surrounded by “soldiers, hard tack and coffins,” and he wrote: “None knew where we were going and the conflict between hope and fear was in many a breast—hope of success and glory, and distrust of the issue.”

The steamboat halted at Memphis when local citizens hailed it from shore with an alarming report that Confederate Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his cavalry were nearby and were preparing an attack on the city. That night the men of the 36th slept in Jackson Square with their arms stacked nearby. The regiment later moved to old vacated mule-sheds and remained in Memphis performing guard duty until 1 January 1863, when it resumed movement to Helena, Arkansas.

At Helena, the regiment became part of the 1^st Brigade, 13^th Division, 13^th Corps under Maj. Gen. Benjamin M. Prentiss. The regiment was initially quartered in tents but later moved into winter quarters at Fort Curtis in semi-permanent “half-cabins” consisting of log walls with canvas ceilings and dirt floors.

In February 1863, the 36th Iowa, 600 strong, embarked with other elements of the 13th Corps for Mississippi to take part in the Yazoo Pass Expedition. This operation was designed to blow an opening through the east bank of the Mississippi River below Helena to open a channel connecting with an inland water route that would enable General Ulysses Grant to encircle the Confederate stronghold at Vicksburg from the north. Captain Swiggett noted that the 36th Iowa had a "sharp exchange" with the rebels, and the regiment was engaged on this march for 40 days. They found no unguarded route to Vicksburg, and the expedition was abandoned. The men suffered because of almost continuous exposure to the elements on this campaign, including freezing rain, wading through cold swamp water, and high winds that blew their tents down. The constant cold and dampness took a heavy toll with dozens of soldiers suffering with colds, flu, and fever.

Returning to Helena, the 36th began a physically demanding daily routine of drill and fortification building in anticipation of a Confederate attack expected with the arrival of spring weather. The 36th Iowa was assigned to build breast works and trenches in support of Battery A at Fort Curtis, on the northernmost end of the Union defenses. The federal line ran in a semicircle around the town with the Mississippi River on their east flank.

On July 4th, 1863 a Confederate army of 8,000-10,000 under Maj. Gen. Theophilus H. Holmes attacked Helena. With devastating artillery fire and fire support from the U.S. Navy gunboat Tyler anchored offshore, the Union positions repulsed the assault in a savage, bloody all-day downeybrook under a burning hot sun. The Confederates nearly captured some of the federal redoubts where the fighting devolved into gory hand-to-hand combat. The attacking Confederates suffered devastating loss of about 3,200 while victorious Union forces had some 500 killed, wounded, or missing.

On July 5^th the 36^th Iowa joined other Union forces in celebrating Independence Day a day late by collecting and burying rebel corpses. Vicksburg also surrendered to Gen. Grant on July 4^th. These two victories ended further serious Confederate threat to federal operations along the Mississippi River and essentially cut off regular lines of communication and supply between rebel forces on either side of the Mississippi for the duratuon of the war. With New Orleans, Vicksburg, Helena, Memphis and St. Louis all in federal hands, the Mississippi became the uncontested transportation corridor for the Union.

Following the battle at Helena, the 36^th Iowa joined 7^th Corps under Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele and was ordered into garrison duty at the federal supply base at DuVall's Bluff, Arkansas, on the White River. During July and August, the regiment was sent on guard assignment to Pine Bluff. In early September, Steele's Corps, including the 36^th, launched an attack up the Arkansas River, converging on Little Rock and, after a running battle with Confederate forces, captured that city on September 10, 1863. The 36^th Iowa went into bivouac on the grounds of the Arkansas state capital, enduring a bitterly cold winter there.

Departing Little Rock on March 23, 1864 Steele's Corps of about 20,000 troops, including the 36th Iowa, began moving to Shreveport, Louisiana to join forces the Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks who was operating near the Red River. Steele’s Corps immediately encountered rebel skirmishers along their Line of March. As Steele’s column began to cross the Little Missouri River at Elkin’s Ford, rebels, who were laying in ambush at the ford, ferociously attacked as Steele’s men made their crossing. A sharp infantry and artillery exchange ensued in which the 36^th played a key role. After an all-day fight, the rebels withdrew. As the federal column proceeded slowly to the southwest, the Confederates alternated harrassment with attacks in force, followed by retreat into the forests.

These Confederate attacks slowed Steele's progress and his Corps managed to move only eighty-two miles in ten days. Growing dangerously short on supplies, Steele placed all troops on half-rations and divert his force to Camden, hoping to resupplying his Corps from local granaries and mills. Steele moved into Camden on  April 15 with minor resistance to discover that the rebels had destroyed all the steam gristmills near Camden except Britton's Mill a few miles south of town, Steele ordered the 36^th Iowa to seize the mill. After the capture the men of the 36^th spent several days protecting the mill and grinding corn meal for the army.

Steele sent scouts foraging for other sources of grain and food, and word soon reached his headquarters that a large cache of corn had been discovered northwest of Camden near Poison Springs. On  April 17, Steele ordered the 1^st Kansas Infantry (Colored), elements of three Kansas cavalry regiments, a section of light artillery, and 198 wagons to collect the grain. The next day as the loaded federal wagons were returning to Camden, the escort was ambushed, cut-off and virtually wiped out. Union forces suffered more than 300 casualties, including 204 wounded. True to the threats of the Confederate Government and President Jefferson Davis, black troops received no quarter in this battle. Most of the enlisted men of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry were murdered after they had already surrendered.

Gen. Steele meanwhile received news that Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks' Union force was now in full retreat along the Red River in Louisiana. The implication was obvious—with Banks withdrawing rapidly, Gen. Kirby Smith could turn the full force of his Confederate Army northward to attack Steele's smaller 7th Corps as it lay completely cut off from supplies and reinforcements miles inside the snake-infested swamps and pine forests of southern Arkansas. Faced with a difficult choice Gen. Steele knew that he would have to fight his way out of Camden to re-occupy Little Rock or face starvation and annihilation by the Confederates. Steele chose to save his army, yet the odds were completely against him.

Steele's Corps consisted of less than 20,000 battle-hardened veterans, and they were now down to just half-rations of hard tack, quarter-rations of salt-pork and coffee. The disaster at Poison Springs had cost him nearly 200 supply wagons and their mules, exacerbating further resupply and foraging efforts. To make matters worse, after the defeat of Gen. Nathaniel Banks on the Red River, Confederate commander E. Kirby Smith was moving rapidly into Arkansas, bringing additional infantry regiments with him from Louisiana and raising more recruits along the way. Gen. Smith had some of the finest Confederate general officers serving under him including the talented Sterling “Pap” Price, John Marmaduke, Samuel Maxey, and cavalry commander James Fagan with his two aggressive division commanders—Joe Shelby and William Cabell.

With supplies dangerously short, Gen. Steele ordered Lt. Colonel Francis Drake, commanding the 36^th Iowa, to take temporary command of the 2^nd Brigade to escort his remaining wagons back to Pine Bluff. There, Col. Drake was to refill the wagons and escort the train back to Camden.

This critical supply train was heavily escorted by the 36^th Iowa, Major A. H. Hamilton in temporary command, the 1^st Indiana Cavalry and elements of the 5^th Missouri Cavalry, 43^rd Indiana Infantry, 77^th Ohio Infantry, and a four-gun light battery from Captain Peetz's 2^nd Missouri Light Artillery. The 1^st Iowa Cavalry, that had served its three year term and was on its way home for furlough and re-enlistment, was ordered to catch up with Drake's train. The brigade also included a section of 75 civilian black laborers whose job it was to move ahead of the train, felling trees and laying them down to build corduroy roads over the muddy, difficult route.

The train with its escort left Camden on Friday, April 22, and Col. Drake found that an additional 50–75 civilian wagons carrying teamsters, sutlers, cotton speculators, about 300 Negro refugees and other assorted camp followers had joined the expedition. Due to very muddy road conditions, progress was slow and according to Capt. Swiggett, the column was harassed by rebel skirmishers and snipers throughout Saturday and Sunday. By mid-afternoon Sunday, Drake's column had reached the western approach to the Moro River, a large creek that habitually went out of its banks in a wide swath during spring rains. Swiggett noted that, while no surface water could be discerned in the Moro Bottom, the ground was so saturated by the recent rains that anyone attempting to cross it would become buried deep in mud.

Gen. Steele had ordered Col. Drake not to attempt to cross the Moro Bottom after dark, and additionally the civilian teamsters were raising trouble about the rigors of the pace, according to Swiggett. Rather than proceed, therefore, Drake halted the column on the west bank of the Moro Bottom. Captain Swiggett later noted in his memoirs that the column halted long before nightfall and in fact had gone into camp on the west bank at 2 pm Sunday. Captain Swiggett believed that, had Drake exhibited more backbone by insisting on moving across Moro Bottom Sunday afternoon, the entire train could have crossed safely before nightfall, would have been well on its way to Pine Bluff, and would have avoided the tragedy to come.

In addition, Swiggett noted that there was a strong sense of gloom and foreboding in the federal camp as they lay there immobile on Sunday afternoon. As it was, Drake posted cavalry squads of 25 troopers each two miles to his front and 5 miles to his rear on Sunday, with orders for them to scout all roads for five miles in all directions at daybreak on Monday.

[To be continued.]

Ken Robison is a local historian and author of Montana Territory and the Civil War: A Frontier Forged on the Battlefield.

Photo: 1. Civil War prison survivor Captain Samuel A. Swiggett.

Remembering Our Civil War Heritage and Heroes:

1861-1865

Captain Samuel A. Swiggett: From a Civil War Prison

 To the Montana Legislature [Part 2]

By Ken Robison

For The River Press

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This continues a monthly series commemorating the 150^th Anniversary of the Civil War and the veterans that came to Montana after the war. This issue features the second of two parts highlighting the adventures of Captain Samuel A. Swiggett who survived a Confederate prisoner of war camp to be elected to the Montana Legislature.  Descendants of Montana Civil War veterans are encouraged to send their stories and photos to mtcivilwar@yahoo.com.

In Part 1, Samuel A. Swiggett joined the 36^th Iowa Infantry Regiment in 1862 and fought in the important Civil War Battles of Helena and Little Rock, Arkansas. This concludes his story with the drastic defeat and capture of Capt. Swiggett and most of his regiment, his later freedom at the end of the Civil War, and his later sterling career in Montana. Part 1 ended with the 36^th Iowa with other Union forces escorting a criticial Union resupply wagon train through dangerous territory in Arkansas.

Sunday night passed without incident and, having received no reports of the enemy from his scouts on Monday morning, Col. Drake ordered the march resumed. The 43^rd Indiana was deployed to lead the way, with the 36^th Iowa marching on the flank of the wagons. Drake ordered the 77^th Ohio to form the rear-guard and that regiment lagged almost three miles to the rear. As the column slowly crossed Moro Bottom and headed to higher ground, federal scouts informed Colonel Norris in command of the 43^rd Indiana that they had discovered signs of large, hastily abandoned cavalry encampments to their immediate front. Norris sent that report back to Drake, who dismissed it rather curtly and sent forward orders for the 43^rd  to pick up the pace. A short distance further, in a clearing at a fork in the road occupied by a few log cabins, the 43^rd Indiana was fired on by dismounted rebel cavalry from Maj. Gen. Fagan's command. Fagan had evaded Union scouts the previous night by crossing the Ouachita River below Camden and making a 52-mile forced march to get into position ahead of Drake’s train. That morning they were lying in ambush near the crossroad clearing, known locally as Mark's Mills.

Forming line of battle, the 43^rd Indiana charged Fagan's dismounted cavalry. As the charge commenced, Confederate Brig. Gen. William Cabell's mounted cavalry revealed itself from concealed positions in the trees on the south, or right flank. What began as a skirmish at around 8:30 am quickly developed into a very hot firefight with the federals firing in two directions to beat off the assault. The veteran Indiana and Iowa infantry supported by artillery were holding their own  concentrating on the rebels to their front and right flank.

At this moment Brig. Gen. Joe Shelby's cavalry brigade charged them from the left flank. Three companies of the 36^th Iowa, the entire 43^rd Indiana and an artillery battery were now pressed on three sides and were in danger of being encircled. Col. Drake ordered the remainder of the 36^th Iowa Infantry, still positioned near the wagons, to charge into Cabell's troopers on the right to push them back, prevent encirclement and attempt a link-up with the 77^th  Ohio, which was now moving forward to join the battle. Before this charge could be accomplished however, the rebels closed the trap. As the federal troops were surrounded, it quickly became a confused entanglement of small units fighting small units and then it became, according to Capt. Swiggett, "Every man for himself."

The federals fought bravely but were now surrounded and receiving fire from all sides. The ferocious fighting lasted five hours. Some of the 36^th Iowa took cover in the log cabins and kept up a deadly fire, holding out from those protected positions until long after the others had surrendered, and until they exhausted their ammunition. When the rebels threatened to burn the cabins down, the Iowans surrendered. According to Captain Swiggett, when capture became certain, most of the Iowa men smashed their rifles against trees rather than hand them over to their captors.

As the men of the 36^th and 43^rd Indiana were being rounded up and disarmed, a last-ditch effort to break the Confederate lines by some brave federal cavalrymen created enough confusion and diversion for some of the Iowa soldiers to bolt. Several disappeared into the nearby woods and a few headed to the rear to warn the 77^th Ohio of the overwhelming size of the enemy force to the front. Reaching the 77^th a mile to the rear, the 36^th Iowa men were accused of being deserters and their report was not believed. The Commanding Officer of the 77^th  ordered his regiment forward at the double quick into the melee and soon that regiment was also overwhelmed by the three rebel cavalry divisions and surrendered.

By 3 pm on 25 April, 1864 the 36^th Iowa Infantry had ceased to exist. Capt. Swiggett’s Company B had suffered 73  killed and wounded. Capt. Swiggett and 35 of his men were captured, and the Rebels robbed most of them of their possessions and even their clothes. The event of that fateful day that most disturbed Swiggett involved the flag. He wrote:

   “We were quietly standing there, awaiting the final [prisoner] count, when we suddenly caught sight of an approaching body of rebels bearing a lot of captured flags, among which I recognized our own, all torn and disfigured as it was, the very scars enabling the recognition.

    “We can talk lightly of a flag as being only a distinguishing mark or emblem, but its true emblematic character is not realized until some occasion arises to impress upon us what is meant by the flag of our county.

    “When my gaze rested upon that shot-torn flag all the memories of its associations flashed through my mind in an instant, as well as the full realization of what its possession would mean to us and what its absence signified. Words cannot express my feelings. I looked around me for a moment, and meeting the eye of one of our men looking at me, his countenance twitching and his eyes filled with tears, I broke down completely and sobbed like a child for a few minutes.

   “O ye men, who have only looked upon our country’s flag as a pretty emblem! You, who only think of it as a necessary distinguishing mark among nations! And the many who never think of it as anything except a piece of bunting! Be ye once in a position where inability to possess that strip of colored fabric means privation, loss of liberty, separation from home and friends, possibly death, and you will then realize what it means to you as no language can depict!”

The prisoners were marched over 1,700 miles, and confined in thirteen jails and prisons along the way in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. Finally, they were imprisoned at Camp Ford, Tyler, Texas. Over the next year, many of the prisoners died of malnutrition and disease. In her diary, young Louisiana refugee Kate Stone noted the deaths of some Yankee prisoners "which is not strange as they are so dreadfully crowded and have the roughest fare. But we cannot help them. They should have stayed in their own bountiful country instead of coming down here to kill and destroy."

Among the 4-5,000 prisoners at Camp Ford, the favorite pastime was planning escapes. From tunnels to clever ruses, the prisoners tried every tactic imaginable. Tunnel escapes often proved abortive events with early discovery or construction miscalculations ending the tunnel short of its goal. In one case some 50 prisoners escaped though most were recaptured with a few days. It was a long way to Union lines from Tyler, Texas through rebel territory.

Capt. Swiggett twice made his escape, once succeeding in getting 150 miles from the prison before he was recaptured. On his second escape, he ranged 250 miles from Camp Ford, but again was recaptured. In both his escapes, black slaves defied the Confederates by giving aid and directions to Capt. Swiggett and other Union escapees.

In his first escape attempt in August, 1864 Capt. Swiggett with five other officers of the 36^th Iowa, bribed the guards and made their escape. They traveled by night, remained hidden in the woods during the day, and in this way succeeded in covering a distance of 110 miles; but when they reached the vicinity of Boston, Texas, they were recaptured and were marched back to Tyler. When taken, most of the men were exhausted from exposure and want of food, and the return to Tyler was made under great hardship. They were returned to the stockade at Camp Ford in late September. On the 23d of December, Captain Swiggett, with two officers of the 120^th Ohio Infantry, made a second attempt to escape, and after traveling twenty-one nights they reached the Codo river, 275 miles from Tyler. Again he and the two officers who were with him were captured, this time being confined from time to time in different jails and finally landed in the stockade at Shreveport before being marched back to Camp Ford

When they weren’t planning escapes, the prisoners were speculating about parole exchanges. Capt. Swiggett observed:

    “Exchanges at this time were considerably delayed by the trouble which resulted from the paroles given to the large number of prisoners at Vicksburg. These men were tired of fighting, had no desire to serve the Confederacy again, and not only refrained from again carrying arms against the United States, until regularly exchanged, but sought to avoid doing it at all by keeping out of the way of exchange.”

Capt. Swiggett’s regiment was being exchanged in early 1865 in Shreveport at the time of his second escape attempt. Because of his two escapes Swggett was not allowed to go to freedom with his men. In fact, Capt. Swiggett was the last Yankee prisoner to leave Camp Ford’s stockade on May 22, 1865.

With his release, on board a Rebel transport boat enroute return to the Union fleet, Capt. Swiggett talked with the Confederate prisoner exchange commissioner. In his conversation with the commissioner, Colonel Samansky, who was a Pole who had risen to Colonel in the Confederate army, Swiggett was asked how he had been treated as a prisoner. He replied:

    “The only complaint that I could consistently make against those having me in charge was that I had not been exchanged with my regiment. I claimed to him that I had been of more service to the Union as a prisoner than I could have been if I had remained in the service, as I had kept, on an average, two men busy watching me ever since I had been captured.

Capt. Swiggett continued to describe his release:

   “At the mouth of the Red River we met some Federal boats coming up with Confederate prisoners. [The prisoners were exchanged at that time so Swiggett was back in Union hands.] One notable feature of this occasion was the fact remarked by everyone that you could tell a Yankee from a rebel as far as you could see him, even without his clothes. The reason for this was that our confinement in the open air had caused us to be burned brown by the sun, even through our clothing, while the rebels were white from confinement within walls.”

Capt. Swiggett and the other released prisoners were taken down to New Orleans and housed there ten days in a cotton press. From the time of his capture to his arrival in New Orleans he had only once been able to get word through to his wife so he promptly wrote to her. He heard later that she had learned of his condition through an earlier escaped prisoner. On the way back to Benton Barracks, St. Louis Swiggett learned that his reconstituted 36^th Iowa Infantry Regiment was at Duval’s Bluff on guard duty. After a great reception with his 36^th Iowa and being mustered out, Swiggett proceeded home to Iowa.

Throughout his ordeal Capt. Swiggett remained positive about the future. As he observed, “My natural disposition being to see the bright side only, the hardships of which I had to tell were made to have another aspect than the usual one presented of prison life.” He continued:

   “There were cases of personal ill treatment which came under my notice, but they were the great exceptions, and, as a rule, the rebels of my acquaintance did for their prisoners all that was possible with the means in their power and treated them as well as prisoners could expect to be treated.

    “The war is over. Our foes had neither our resources nor our advantages in its prosecution, and many things that were easy for us were impossible for them . . .  Incidents by the thousand of heroic, heart-touching actions performed for humanity’s sake during our war by those on one side for those on the other reflect as much credit upon rebels as upon Yankees, and I have always felt that, on the whole, our antagonists did the best they could for their prisoners.”

Returning to his family in Iowa, Swiggett was elected sheriff of Wapello County in 1869, remaining in office until 1874. In 1887 he caught Montana mining fever and moved west to settle at Clancy, Jefferson County. He bought an interest in a quartz mine and engaged in mining. Although he’d been a resident for just one year, he attended the Jefferson County Republican convention. There were sixty-two members in the convention, only two of whom he knew; nevertheless, he was nominated on the Legislative ticket. That fall he was elected to the 16^th and last Territorial House of Representatives, and from January to March 1889 he served on the important committee on mines and minerals.

Capt. Swiggett continued mining until 1890, when he was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison as register of the United States Land Office at Helena. In March 1894, Republican Gov. John E. Rickards named Swiggett as register of the newly created State Land Office. He served just two years before Democratic Gov. Robert B. Smith removed him because of Swiggett’s opposition to free silver. In 1896 the Merchants & Miners National Bank of Philipsburg failed. Capt. Swiggett was appointed receiver and within twelve months had skillfully paid all creditors 100 cents on the dollar.

Mrs. Eliza Swiggett died in 1894 and a year later Capt. Swiggett married Mrs. Florence (Grabill) Kelly. A lifelong Republican, Swiggett cast his first vote for the first Republican presidential candidate John C. Fremont in 1856. Capt. Swiggett was a prominent member of the Grand Army of the Republic. In August 1898, he was appointed United States deputy collector of customs based in Great Falls, and he remained in office until his death on July 22, 1904 in Helena. Fellow Civil War veterans Colonel Wilbur Fisk Sanders (Union) and Shirley C. Ashby (Confederate) served as honorary pallbearers. Old soldier, prison survivor, and eternal optimist, Captain Samuel A. Swiggett rests today with his first wife in Ottumwa Cemetery, Wapello County, Iowa.

Ken Robison is a local historian and author of Montana Territory and the Civil War: A Frontier Forged on the Battlefield.

Photo: 1. Captain S. A. Swiggett’s Gravestone in Ottumwa Cemetery, Iowa.