The History of Minnesota and Tales of the FrontierFlandrau, Charles E. (Charles Eugene)
History
The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier
Flandrau, Charles E. (Charles Eugene)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Minnesota; Minnesota -- History
The general served out his term in the senate just about the time the
Civil War broke out, and he tendered his services to the country, and
became a general of volunteers. He was wounded in some battle, and I
remember reading a general order announcing that he had sufficiently
recovered to ride at the head of his brigade in a buggy. I took
advantage of this singular position for a military commander, and
impressed into the service of the state a splendid $2,000 team of
trotters belonging to Harry Lamberton, with his buggy, and himself as
driver, and rode comfortably in it until the end of the Indian war, at
the head of my brigade.
The general was not long in discovering that the political wind had
taken a Republican direction in Minnesota, which boded him no good. So
he pulled up stakes and emigrated to Texas. There he felt the public
pulse, and not finding any immediate indications that he would be chosen
senator, and not having any pressing business in any other line, he
emigrated to California. There he found a more favorable outlook, and
almost as soon as he gained a residence in the state he was nominated
for the United States Senate by the Democrats, and came within one or
two votes of an election.
The general had always been a bachelor before going to California, but
he surrendered to the charms of a lady of that state, and married. Not
being willing to remain until the next senatorial election, he migrated
to the State of Missouri, where he was very soon elected to congress by
a substantial majority of about 3,000; but, it being in the
reconstruction period, and he being a Democrat, the state board found no
difficulty in counting him out, after which event very little was heard
of the general for some years, when he appeared on the lecture platform,
discoursing on Mexico. This venture was not much of a success, and the
general was reputed to be quite broken up financially.
His next appearance was at Washington as a candidate for doorkeeper of
the senate, which office, I believe, is one of both dignity and profit;
but he did not succeed in getting it, and returned to Missouri, broken
in fortune and spirit. It was just at this critical period in his career
that his luck returned, and he became famous in a direction that no
other man in the United States has ever reached. A vacancy occurred in
the office of United States senator from Missouri, either by death or
some other reason, and the governor bestowed the position upon the
general, thus making him a member of the body of which he had so
recently sought to become the doorkeeper, and conferring upon him the
peculiar and conspicuous distinction of being the only man in the
republic who ever represented three states in the senate of the United
States.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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