Biographical Sketches.

ALEXANDER W. DONIPHAN.

The Louisville Courier-Journal, speaking of the Mexican war, says: Doniphan's exploits have been compared with those of Xenophon. Doniphan, with the first regiment of mounted Missouri volunteers, left Fort Leavenworth on June 12, 1846, and marched across the plains to Mexico, fought three important battles-Brazito, Sacramento and El Pasoconquered the states of Mexico and Chihuahua, and traveled more than 6,000 miles in twelve months, not a word being heard by the government from him in the meantime.

Alexander William Doniphan was born near Maysville, Mason county, Kentucky, July 9, 1808. He is, of English descent, though his paternal English ancestors immigrated to America in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and settled on the Potomac river, below Fredericksburg, Virginia, where the family name is still preserved by other descendants. His father, Joseph Doniphan, was the second son of Alexander Doniphan, in honor of whom Colonel Doniphan was named. By the law of primogeniture, which then prevailed in Virginia, Joseph Doniphan inherited no real estate, and what he subsequently acquired was the result of his own industry and frugality. When the war of the revolution began, he was about seventeen years of age, and as King George county, where his father resided, was one of the first sections of that state to be overrun by the British army, both he and his brother George enlisted in the Colonial army. George was killed at his brother's side, but Joseph served with honor till the close of the struggle. The activity and excitement of the war aroused in young Doniphan a spirit of adventure, and, as he had to carve out his own fortune, he was attracted to the far west by the stories of its wonderful beauty, its fabulous fertility and its climatic salubrity. Soon after the declaration of peace and the cessation of hostilities, he accompanied that grim old pioneer, Daniel Boone, to the wilds of Kentucky, encountering hardships and perils for which the life he had previously led had given him a relish. After a short stay in Kentucky, he returned to Virginia, and there married Miss Ann Smith, a daughter of Captain William Smith, of Fauquier county. He removed with his family to Mason county, Kentucky, in 1790, and died there in March, 1813, after a residence of twenty-three years, leaving his wife and seven children, three sons and four daughters, of whom only two, Mrs. Susan Frazee, widow of Dr. E. S. Frazee, of May's Lick, Kentucky, at present

residing with her youngest son, near Rushville, west of Cincinnati, Ohio, and the subject of this sketch are now alive. The oldest brother, Dr. Thomas S. Doniphan, father of Colonel John Doniphan, of St. Joseph, Missouri, served as a surgeon in the war of 1812, and died near the old homestead in Kentucky.

Upon the widow now devolved the responsibility of providing for and educating her seven children, and right nobly did she discharge her trust. Alexander being the youngest child, the solicitude of his mother centered in him, and until his ninth year she carefully supervised his training. At that age, he was sent to his older brother, George, then living at Augusta, Kentucky, where he received the best educational training the village could supply. When he was fourteen years old the Methodists established a college at Augusta, and from this institution he graduated in 1827, with distinguished honors, being then in the nineteenth year of his age. Orville H. Browning, secretary of the interior under President Lincoln; Charles Clark, late governor of Mississippi; Alex. M. Spencer, late mayor of Cincinnati; and others who afterwards became more or less distinguished, were schoolmates of young Doniphan. After graduating, he devoted himself for six months to the study of ancient and modern history, and began the study of law in 1828, under the learned and able jurist, Martin Marshall, of Augusta, through whom he received a thorough training in common and statute law, obtaining a license to practice in the states of Ohio and Kentucky in the fall of 1829, at the age of twenty-one. During the winter of the latter year, he traveled extensively in the western and southern states, and located at Lexington, Missouri, in the spring of 1830. He had spent his patrimony and more, in acquiring an education and in fitting himself for his profession and when he reached Missouri, without either money to maintain himself or friends, or acquaintances to assist him, he was entirely dependent on those qualities that have never betrayed him-energy, perseverance and intellectual endowments. They proved equal to the emergency, and he succeeded well in Lexington; but he determined, for reasons satisfactory to himself, to change his residence to Liberty, Missouri, which he did in 1833. Here he remained for thirty years, devoting the vigor of his younger manhood, and the experience of his maturer years, to the practice of the law, in which he rapidly rose to eminence.

With an ambition modified and restrained by sound judgment, an intellect capable of grasping and mastering the most intricate and abstruse propositions of law, a mind trained to reason correctly and reflect coolly, and an impulsive and impressive oratory, it is not strange that he won his way to distinction at the bar without the use of those arguments to which the weak resort. He grew in popular favor by the generous impulses of his own nature, and the superiority of his talents, and it is a singular fact

that, though he was at times opposed in sentiment to the great body of his old associates and constituents, he never forfeited the affection of his friends or the respect of his enemies. In 1836, he was elected to represent Clay county in the ninth general assembly of Missouri, and, though young, he made a creditable record in that body. Twice afterward, in 1840 and in 1854, he was chosen to fill the same position, which he always did with honor to himself and to the satisfaction of his constituents. In December, 1837, he married Jane Thornton, daughter of John Thornton, a well known, respected pioneer of Clay county. Mrs. Doniphan was a lady of refined sentiment, cultivated taste, and purity of character.

In the same year in which Colonel Doniphan was married, Governor Boggs called out a strong militia force to quell the disturbances of the Mormons at a place in Caldwell county, Missouri, by them called Far West. The defiant attitude of these people threatened to result in local war. General Doniphan commanded a brigade under Major-General Lucas, and by his address and soldierly bearing succeeded in bringing them to submission without bloodshed. About the middle of May, 1846, Governor Edwards, of Missouri, made a requisition for volunteers to join General Kearney in his expedition to New Mexico. General Doniphan joined Captain O. P. Moss' company from Clay county as a private. On the 18th of June, eight companies, which were to compose the 1st regiment, having arrived, an election of officers was had, which resulted in the choice of A. W. Doniphan as colonel. In taking charge of the regiment, Colonel Doniphan temporarily abandoned a lucrative practice and a young family, to which he was tenderly devoted, to lend his aid in subduing the enemies of his country. The expedition was commanded by General Kearney until Santa Fe was reached, when that gallant officer took a portion of the command and went to California, leaving Colonel Doniphan, the first regiment and all other forces in New Mexico. It was the design of Colonel Doniphan to march upon Chihuahua as soon as Colonel Price, who was known to be bringing reinforcements, should arrive to take command of Santa Fe; but on the 11th of October he received instructions from General Kearney to proceed to the country of the Navajos, a brave, war-like, and semi-civilized tribe of Indians, whose territory lay on the western slope of the Cordilleras, and chastise and subdue them. Winter was approaching; the mountain summits were almost inaccessible; the dangers and difficulties were formidable, but the courage and intrepidity of General Doniphan did not allow him to count the cost. He therefore set about the execution of his orders with all possible dispatch, and, after a wearisome and exhausting march, reached the Navajos' country, and secured a treaty of amity. He then turned his face toward the Del Norte again to prepare for his expedition against Chihuahua, reaching Valverde about the 10th of December. Doniphan was

to press on to Saltillo to join the forces of General Wool. The enterprise was fraught with danger, but this fact operated as a stimulus to excite rather than as a difficulty to daunt the young warrior and his gallant followers. He set out with eleven hundred and fifty men, including the first Missouri, one hundred men from the second Missouri, and two companies of the Missouri artillery battalion. On Christmas day a part of his command was attacked by twelve hundred Mexicans at Brazito. The engagement was short, sharp and decisive. In half an hour the Mexicans were forced from the field, leaving their dead and wounded where they fell.

On the 28th of February, 1847, near the city of Chihuahua, was fought the battle of Sacramento. Having traversed an unknown territory with a handful of troops, surrounded by enemies, and liable at any time to be attacked by a superior force, Colonel Doniphan was not now to be intimidated by a prospect, even of immediate peril. The American force numbered nine hundred and twenty-four effective men of all arms. The Mexican troops, under Major General Jose A. Hiredia, numbered four thousand, two hundred and twenty. Notwithstanding the superior force of the enemy, the fact that he had chosen his own position and fortified it well, such was the tact of General Doniphan that, after an engagement of three and a half hours, the Mexicans were utterly routed, with a loss of three hundred and twenty killed, five hundred and sixty wounded, and seventy-two prisoners, together with a large quantity of specie, stores, stock, guns and other munitions of war. The American loss was two killed and eleven wounded, three of the latter mortally. The city of Chihuahua was entered next day. Here Colonel Doniphan had hoped to join General Wool, but learned that he was at Saltillo, besieged by Santa Anna. This, however, proved to be untrue, and in a few days he heard of the victory at Buena Vista, and not long afterward of the battle of Cerro Gordo. The war was now virtually closed, and the troops slowly made their way to New Orleans, where they were mustered out of service, June 28, 1847. Upon their return to Missouri, the citizens of St. Louis gave the soldiers a grand reception, and they were welcomed by Senator Benton in a speech, to which Colonel Doniphan responded. Everywhere the commander and his heroic army were received with demonstrations of honor, showing that the people appreciated the dangers they had encountered and the results they had achieved. Colonel Doniphan returned to his home at Liberty, and resumed the practice of law. He remained in Liberty till in 1863, when he returned to St. Louis, where he remained till 1869. In 1861 he was one of the five delegates appointed to represent Missouri in the celebrated peace conference, and was one of the five from the border states, who, by special invitation, held an interview with President Lincoln, to counsel and advise as to the best method of

preserving peace, maintaining the Union, and settling the difficulties that then environed the nation, and the only one now living. It was while absent on this mission that he was chosen to represent his senatorial district in the state convention. By his marriage to Miss Thornton, the Colonel had two sons, to whose training he devoted much time and labor, but both died in youth. To his wife he was most warmly devoted, and her death, which occurred July 19, 1873, left him depressed and stricken. Before her death both he and his wife united with the Christian Church. In 1869 Colonel Doniphan returned to Western Missouri, and located in Richmond, where he now (1881) resides. Colonel Doniphan was a man of great physical strength, as his erect carriage, firm, elastic step, and graceful, easy movement, at the age of seventy-three, evince. He is six feet three inches in hight, compactly built, with a large frame and well developed muscles. Of an impulsive nature, which is restained by reason and an overmastering will power; brave, fearless, true to his convictions of right and duty, a sincere friend, a frank and open foe, he has gathered about him a host of friends, whose confidence and esteem are his highest eulogium.

HON. GEORGE W. DUNN.

George Washington Dunn, the present judge of the fifth judicial circuit of Missouri, was born near Harrodsburg, Mercer county, Kentucky, October 15, 1815. His father, Major Lemuel Dunn, a pioneer farmer of Kentucky, was the son of Michael Dunn, of Irish parentage, but a native of Virginia, and a noble defender of his country in the war for the independence of the American colonies. The mother of the subject of this sketch-whose maiden name was Sarah Read Campbell-was also a native Virginian, of Irish descent. Her father, John Campbell, was also a soldier in the war of the revolution. Major Dunn died in 1829, leaving his family in limited circumstances, on a farm, when George was only fourteen years old. Young as he was, he worked diligently through the summer, and attended school during the winter. He acquired such education as the family's finances would allow, at Cane Run Academy, Mercer county, excelling in mathematics. Although unable to take the full course at one of the higher institutions of learning, his unquenchable thirst for knowledge led him to eschew the usual pastimes of youth, and to devote every spare hour to study; and thus his ardor, close application, and self-denial made up for what his poverty disallowed. His mental tastes were of a very high order, far exceeding that of ordinary young men, and leading him into the advanced classics, law, general literature, and especially into the flowery fields of poetry, enabling him to

"Touch the heart, or fire the imagination at will.”

At the age of nineteen he engaged as clerk in a dry goods store, at