Samuel Bell MAXEY, Congress, TX (1825-1895)

MAXEY, Samuel Bell, a Senator from Texas; born in Tomkinsville, Monroe County, Ky., March 30, 1825; attended the common schools and graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., in 1846; served in the Mexican War; returned to Kentucky; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1850 and commenced practice in Albany, Ky.; clerk of the county and circuit courts and master in chancery 1852-1856; moved to Paris, Tex., in 1857 and practiced his profession; district attorney of Lamar County, Tex., 1858-l859; elected to the State senate in 1861, but declined; during the Civil War raised the Ninth Regiment, Texas Infantry, of which he was colonel, for the Confederate Army; was promoted to brigadier general and major general; commanded the Indian Territory military district 1863-1865 and was also superintendent of Indian affairs; remained in the service of the Confederacy until the surrender of the trans-Mississippi department in 1865; resumed the practice of law in Paris, Tex.; commissioned as judge of the eighth district of Texas in 1873, but declined the position; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1875; reelected in 1881 and served from March 4, 1875, to March 3, 1887; was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection; chairman, Committee on Post Office and Post Roads (Forty-sixth Congress); continued the practice of law in Paris, Tex., until his death at Eureka Springs, Ark., August 16, 1895; interment in Evergreen Cemetery, Paris, Tex.

Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography; Horton, Louise. Samuel Bell Maxey: A Biography. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974; Waugh, John C. Sam Bell Maxey and the Confederate Indians. Ft. Worth: Ryan Place Publishers, 1995.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present