USA > Arkansas > Biographical and pictorial history of Arkansas. Vol I > Part 32
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HON. MASON WOOD BENJAMIN, LITTLE ROCK.
Mr. Benjamin was born at Coldbrook, New York, May 3, 1837, of Pilgrim stock in both lines, being lineally descended from John Benjamin, an officer under Governor Winthrop,
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first governor of the colony of Massachusetts Bay, and in the mother's line from the Lymans, who came from England with Governor Winthrop. He was educated at Cortland Academy, New York, and taught school during the winter months to de- fray the expenses attending his education. When twenty years old he went to Illinois, and engaged in teaching until he could prepare to enter the legal profession. He read law under Browning & Bushnell at Quincy, Illinois, and was admitted to the guild in 1860. At the commencement of hostilities be- tween the north and south, he went to Kansas, and joined the Fifth Kansas cavalry, and served until the end of the war, being a lieutenant and acting assistant adjutant-general. At the conclusion of peace he settled in Little Rock, and com- menced the practice of his profession, in which he is still engaged. He was a member of the legislature in 1868, and was solicitor general in 1868-9. He bravely led the forlorn hope of the republican party in two contests - first in a race for congress, and next for chief justice - and failed in each instance to overcome the large democratic majority. As a politician, he is conservative; as a lawyer, able. Thomas Marcum, the able criminal lawyer of Fort Smith, and Mr. Benjamin married sisters, the Misses Riddle of Kentucky.
HON. GEORGE PARKER SMOOT, PRESCOTT.
Hon. George P. Smoot's father and grandfather (the latter a very eminent surgeon) moved from Fredericksburgh, Mary- land, to middle Tennessee in 1815. The history of the family in America dates back to an early period in the seventeenth century. The original founder came over under the patronage of Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, and settled in Maryland - the great principle of religious toleration being the corner-stone on which the colony was founded by the very distinguished statesman and philanthropist who founded it. On the mother's side he is descended from an ancient Virginia family, numbering in its fold President Tyler. Both lines were represented in the war of independence, and resisted the encroachments of the crown. Brigadier-General Tyler, of the Confederate army, was a near relative. No nobler specimen of manhood ever lived, no truer friend, no braver soldier ever
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died. He was the intimate, the cherished friend of the author. He lived a hero's life in an iron age, and fought beneath a Confederate plume in an hundred battles, to die sword in hand in response to the last battle call.
" The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour, The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
Colonel George Gantt, that great and most eloquent of advo- cates, now of Memphis, Tennessee, is another cousin. But heraldry and fame may exist independent of greatness, and they may all co-exist. Major Smoot was born in Hickman county, Tennessee, on his father's farm, the 28th of Decem- ber, 1828.
When a boy he was of sedate, studious and reflecting cast of mind, and rapidly acquired an academic education, and became thoroughly versed in the English branches. After this he at- tended a select school taught by Professor Arnold, under whom he acquired a thorough knowledge of the Latin classics. He read a thorough course of law at Columbia, Tennessee, under Judge Edmond Dilahunty, a jurist of great local celebrity. From this office he was graduated in the law and was there ad- mitted to the bar in 1848. He practiced law at Columbia, Ten- nessee, two years, and in 1850 moved to Magnolia in Columbia county, Arkansas, where he continued in the practice of his pro- fession until 1877, save the years he gave as a soldier to the Con- federacy. Since 1877 he has continuously resided in Prescott, Nevada county. In 1861 he represented Columbia county in the constitutional convention, and took an active and very prominent part in the debates of that stormy period. He tendered his services to the Confederate government through the secretary of war, and was by that official assigned to duty in the field on the staff of Major-General John L. McCowen, in which position he served until the end of 1863. From staff duty he was transferred to the provost marshal's department in the field, and attached to the army of the Tennessee, in which position he served until the end. He was in the battles of Bel- mont, Farmington, Perryville, Corinth, and at the siege of
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HON. C. B. NEAL.
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Island 10. He resumed the practice of his profession after the war, and has been engaged in it since that time. He was a member of the constitutional convention of 1874, from Co- lumbia county. His ripe talent as lawyer and jurist, and the ready facility with which he entered into debate soon distin- guished him in that body.
He has often served as special circuit judge and has served as special judge of the supreme court. He stands in the front rank of his profession in this State. In some things he is pecu- liar and perhaps eccentric - notably so in dress, caring nothing for it as an appendage save the bodily comfort derived from it. He possesses a vast fund of general information and rare con- versational powers, which renders him a charming companion. In the field of modern theology - if that term may be used to distinguish it as one of the progressive sciences - he is well versed. Between the abstruse questions involved in the moral philosophy taught by Christ, and the dark flood of agnosticism, he steers with wonderful facility and power. He follows, em- braces the doctrines of Christianity, in its lofty aspirations, as developed and adapted to the necessities of man and compatible with his reasoning faculties. But when theologians mystify the doctrines of the Master, and deny emancipation to the God- like attributes of the mind, he refuses to go blindfolded into the gulf. And who, possessed of less authority than God, shall say he is wrong ?
HON. C. B. NEAL, GREENWOOD.
Hon. C. B. Neal was born on a farm the 10th of January, 1829, in Anderson county, east Tennessee, and followed agri- cultural pursuits until he attained his majority. He acquired a common-school education at intervals when not engaged on the farm. After attaining his majority he spent two years at college, and mastered a good education in the English branches. At the end of his collegiate course, financial embarrassment led him to temporarily embrace the occupation of school-teach- ing for a small monthly salary - an occupation followed by a great number of men early in life as a stepping-stone, and by many who afterward became greatly distinguished. From the school-room he went to the accountant's desk in the office of 44
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clerk and master in chancery -one of the best preparatory schools to entering the legal profession. Here he assiduously cultivated that system and method his responsible position im- posed, and became deeply impressed with the conviction that method is the first law of business as well as of nature.
East Tennessee at that time contained many lawyers of great ability, and the arguments of some of these distinguished men over exceptions to his reports as master in chancery first imparted an impulse and then a settled conviction to embrace law as a profession. Such resolve, coupled with a well-organized and disciplined mind, will make a good lawyer. Where these great primal elements unite in the same man, no ordinary impediment will cut him off from success. In 1856 he was admitted to the bar in east Tennessee. In 1860 he located at Greenwood, in Sebastian county, where he has remained ever since in the practice of his profession, save the interval when the courts were closed during the war of the Rebellion. In 1862 he was elected to the legislature from Sebastian county, and again in 1864. Although not an active combatant in the field, he was intensely southern in his views, and aided and abetted his native south, and abided her fortunes, and when she went under in the tremendous conflict, he did not, like Longstreet and Mosby and men of that stripe, turn on his countrymen by joining the dominant party, that thrift might follow dis- graceful fawning. Of all the contemptible objects the war produced it was the Confederate parasite who joined the con- quering northmen to raid and pillage the scanty resources of his distressed and fallen countrymen. Some of these monstros- ities, after winning a glorious name in the Confederate service, have sold and peddled it for pottage. The man who turns traitor is, nevertheless, an Arnold, whether it be in field or cabinet.
Mr. Neal owned valuable slave and other property, all of which perished with the Confederacy. Lee's surrender found him on Red river, Louisiana, without a dollar to defray his ex- penses back to Greenwood. To overcome this financial em- barrassment he opened an office where the disaster overtook him, and practiced law there until the next year, and then re- turned to Greenwood. In 1871 he was elected to the legisla-
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HON. JOHN B. MCDONOUGH.
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ture from Sebastian the third time. Less than one-third of that body were democrats. This minority, under the lead of Mr. Neal, soon broke the radical majority in the lower house, and obtained control of it, and passed articles of impeachment against Powell Clayton, governor, and John McClure, chief justice. McClure was tried and acquitted by the republican senate. Mr. Neal conducted the impeachment trial before the radical senate in behalf of the house of representatives, and, although a partisan tribunal acquitted the defendant, the moral effect of the trial before the bar of public opinion was great. He has the courage of his convictions, and is fearless in maintain- ing what he conceives to be right, and in denouncing that which is wrong. He is a fine judge of human nature, and al- ways displays this ability in the selection of juries, before whom he is powerful. He is a good lawyer, and acts in the management of a case on the principle that lawsuits are won in their preparation before the trial court commences.
HON. J. B. MCDONOUGH, FORT SMITH.
J. B. McDonough was born November 24, 1858, in Caddo parish, Louisiana, of Scotch-Irish lineage on the father's side, and English on the mother's. In 1866 the family moved to Sebastian county, Arkansas. The early education of the boy was derived from his mother and father, who took great inter- est in him, and learned him to read and write, and spell well before sending him to the common schools. In 1878 he en- tered the State University at Fayetteville, Arkansas, and remained there four years, graduating in 1882 with the first honors of his class; the faculty conferred on him the degree of bachelor of arts in 1884. In 1881 the faculty offered a gold medal prize for the best original oration, and threw open the doors of competition to both the junior and senior classes, Mr. McDonough being of the junior class, and to him the prize was awarded. He maintained himself and paid his own way at college by teaching during vacation intervals. After leav- ing the university he taught school two years at Buckner Col- lege, Sebastian county, and utilized all of his leisure time by reading law and reciting to himself. In November, 1884, he was licensed by the State courts to practice law, and in Feb-
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ruary, 1885, opened an office in Fort Smith. In 1886 the democratic party nominated Mr. MeDonough, and elected him as one of the representatives from Sebastian county in the State legislature. The author, as one of his warmest and best friends, warned him against the often fatal delusion found in political life and aspirations ; and he fears his young friend has made a mistake, but he promises to return to his office and abandon politics hereafter. He has a fine legal mind, and goes to the root of all questions he investigates; is patient and un- tiring in research ; is a fine reasoner ; is logical and methodical in argument, without any effort or pretense to the ornate dic- tion of the orator; is better adapted to the latitude of the chancellor and jurist than the popular forum of the jury. As a legislator he was a success, and made a good reputation.
THOMAS P. WINCHESTER, FORT SMITH.
Thomas P. Winchester was born in Sumner county, Tennes- see, September 13, 1850, at Cragfont, the palatial seat of his grandfather, General Winchester, of historic fame, who was the friend and bosom companion of General Jackson. Hon. George W. Winchester, his father, was a lawyer, polished orator and gentleman, universally esteemed. The civil war closed all the schools in middle Tennessee, and interrupted the young man's education during the period it lasted, and to this another great embarrassment was superadded - financial distress and wrecked fortunes was the universal inheritance of the southern people in the memorable decade succeeding the civil war. This threw the young man entirely on his own resources for an education, and he went to work resolutely to overcome the obstacles in his way, and in doing so displayed a moral heroism worthy of success. On the borders of his grandfather's estate was located Rural Academy, an institution loved and famous in its day for imparting ripe scholarship. (The author was educated at Wirt College, only four miles distant from this famous academy, and was a frequent visitor at that seat of learning for several years.) To this institution young Winchester resorted after the war, and taught the junior classes, to pay his way through the senior department, and thus acquired a good education in the English branches. His father, shortly after the war terminated, moved
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to Memphis, Tennessee, and thither the son resorted, and read law one year under his father, preparatory to entry at a law school. In 1871, '72 he attended the law department of the University of Virginia, and in the fall of 1872 was, at Mem- phis, admitted to the bar, where he practiced his profession continuously until June, 1880, when he moved to Fort Smith. He is a pronounced and fearless leader in the temperance cause, . and fearlessly proclaims his sentiments on all subjects of public interest ; is equally zealous and efficient in Sabbath-school and church polity, being an active steward in the Methodist church. He is a good lawyer, safe adviser, warm and open-hearted friend, and fearless enemy.
COLONEL ELIAS CORNELIUS BOUDINOT, FORT SMITH.
The history of the Cherokee Indians dates back to the first settlement on the James river in 1607. At that time they had extensive settlements on the Appomattox river in Virginia, and they joined the Powhattan confederation to extinguish the colo- nists on the James Kille kee-nah, the father of Colonel Boudi- not, was descended from a long line of tribal chiefs. His Indian name translated into English means, buck or male deer. Kille-kee-nah was born in Georgia about 1795, and when about fifteen years old was - with the two brothers, the celebrated John Ridge and Stand Waitie, his nephews - sent to school in Cornwall, Connecticut, where all acquired a good education. They afterward became distinguished leaders. Whilst at school, Elias Boudinot, a gentleman of local repute in New Jersey, visited Cornwall, and was attracted by the sprightly and viva- cious Kille-kee-nah, and the intimacy which followed, resulted in the Indian taking the name of his friend and admirer. and henceforth he was called Elias Boudinot. After these Indian boys left Cornwall, they returned to the Cherokee nation in Georgia, and assumed their tribal relations. At that time the United States were treating with all the Indian tribes east of the Mississippi river for their removal west. The celebrated John Ross was then principal chief of the Cherokees and re- sisted the policy of removal. Boudinot, Stand Waitie and Major and John Ridge, in a spirit of true diplomacy and states- manship, advocated the exchange of their possessions in Geor-
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gia for lands in the Indian territory ; and influenced the con- summation of a treaty to that end in 1835.
This resulted in dividing the Cherokees into two factions, and led to the bitterest feuds known to Indian annals. The adherents of Ross settled the north, and the followers of Boudinot and Stand Waitie the south of the Cherokee nation in the Indian territory. This geographical division of the tribe gave them the names of northern and southern Chero- kees. John Ross was only about one-eighth Indian blood, and his personal appearance gave no indication of that adulteration or amalgamation. No man ever excelled him in knowledge of Indian character, and he subordinated it without let or stint to crush all opposition and promote his personal ends, and took care of his conscience at a more convenient season. In June, 1839, the Ross party brutally assassinated Elias Boudinot, his brother Major Ridge and nephew John Ridge, leaving by mis- carriage Stand Waitie the sole great survivor and leader of the opposition.
These preparatory statements are necessary to an accurate comprehension of the historic ground intimately associated with the life of Elias C. Boudinot, who, without question, belongs to the highest type of Indian character yet developed on this con- tinent. He was born the 1st day of August, 1835, near Rome, Georgia, the year his father and kindred triumphed over Ross in consummating the treaty of 1835. Immediately after the assassination of his father, Stand Waitie sent all the children to New England. Elias C. was left at Manchester, Vermont, where he mastered a good education. At first he chose civil . engineering as a profession, and at the age of seventeen spent one year as civil engineer to railroad enterprises in Ohio, but because of physical injuries in the ankle, existing from early infancy, he abandoned that profession for the law, and entered the law office of Hon. A. M. Wilson at Fayetteville, and there, in 1856, was admitted to the bar. He practiced in the State and Federal courts - much in the latter courts.
One of the first cases he appeared in was as junior to the celebrated Alfred W. Arrington and Wilbur D. Reagan, in the defense of Stand Waitie, charged with murder, in the Federal court for the western district of Arkansas. Some of the Ross
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faction, as they thought, caught him at great disadvantage, unarmed and away from the support of friends, and made a murderous assault, intending to take his life; but, as they rushed on him, he met them with desperate resolve, bowie- knife in hand, the strength of a giant and undismayed cour- age, and killed three on the spot, and mortally wounded two more, in less time than it has taken the reader to read this ac- count of the conflict. Boudinot led off in the defense, follow- ing his old preceptor, the Hon. A. M. Wilson, then United States attorney, in one of the most effective and polished ora- tions ever delivered by a man of his age. Reagan was then a great criminal lawyer, in the prime of his life, and Alfred W. Arrington was one of the most gifted orators America has ever produced. In that celebrated trial Boudinot established a commanding position for talent and has ever since main- tained it. Stand Waitie was acquitted, and the counsel for the government to-day pronounce it a righteous verdict.
After hearing an account of this trial from persons who wit- nessed it, I asked Colonel Boudinot about the chief incidents attending it, and he made this memorable remark : " All the innocent blood and sufferings of my race came in panoramic procession before my mind as vivid as the lightning's flash, and determined me to make an effort worthy of my lineage or ruin my brain in the attempt." A portion of the time during his first years at the bar he mounted the editorial tripod as asso- ciate editor of the Arkansian, an ably-edited weekly published at Fayetteville in the interest of democracy. In 1860 the democratic State convention made him chairman of the State central committee, a very distinguished compliment for any man only twenty-five years of age. This position as one of the great leaders of democracy led him into editorial charge of the True Democrat, the leading democratic organ published at the capital. These positions for a man so young indicate extraor- dinary mental vigor, and they were supported with sufficient ability to give him a national reputation. In 1861 he was elected secretary of the secession convention by acclamation ; and when that body adjourned he embraced the cause of the south, and repaired to the Cherokee nation and aided his rela- tive, Stand Waitie, in raising one of the then Indian regiments
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for the Confederate service. Stand Waitie was elected colonel and he was elected major, and soon succeeded to the office of lieutenant-colonel by succession. That grea man - General Albert Pike-was commissioned by the Confederate government, then at Montgomery, to raise and command a brigade of Indians, and did so. John Ross was still principal chief. In October, 1861, he concluded a treaty with the Confederate States, es- poused their cause, and issued a stirring proclamation to his people penned by the hand of a master, in which the author reads the genius of General Pike. He was then at Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee nation. He was engaged in the bloody battles of Oak Hills and Elkhorn. Under a provision of the Cherokee treaty with the Confederate States he was elected to the Confederate congress in 1863 and served in that capacity to the conclusion of peace. In September, 1865, the largest Indian council ever held in this country convened at Fort Smith, to determine the terms of a treaty then under consideration be- tween the United States and the various Indian tribes inhabit- ing the Indian territory. Boudinot represented the southern Cherokees in that council and made an able and manly defense of the course pursued by them during the war. John Ross came to the council crying "traitor and treason " against the southern Cherokees for aiding in the rebellion ; either forgetting or being shameless of his double treason and treachery to both sides. He deserted the south in 1863 and proceeded to Wash- ington to sue for peace and pardon, on the ground that he had been morally overawed and forced to join the rebellion against his will, and that Boudinot and Stand Waitie were the respon- sible parties. When Boudinot came to answer these charges, he did it with documentary and official proofs against Ross, at once convincing, overwhelming, irresistible ; pursuing now the patient, deliberate methods of the trained logician, then rising to the highest offices of the impassioned orator, he covered the name of John Ross with the brand of assassin and traitor, and overwhelmed it with an all-consuming fire which will burn in lurid light as long as the history of the Cherokee nation is preserved. He followed Ross to Washington and checkmated and foiled all of. his machinations and combinations to inflict flagrant injustice on the southern Cherokees.
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John Ross died before the final ratification of the treaty in July, 1866, and his faction tried to perpetuate their power in the person of another Ross, but signally failed. He had survived his usefulness and his fame- had lived too long. He saw the son of the murdered Kille-kee-nah, with the force of power- ful logic and polished oratory, carry senates against him. He lived to see the murdered martyr triumphant in the person of his noble son, as he sank beneath a cloud of shame into a dis- honored grave. In 1868 Colonel Boudinot was the chief actor in behalf of the Cherokees in negotiating a treaty with the United States. The tenth article of the treaty of 1866 con- tained a special provision exempting the Cherokees from taxa- tion of every kind. Under this solemn treaty guaranty Colonel Boudinot established a tobacco factory in the Indian territory in 1867 .. In 1868 congress imposed a tax on the manufacture of tobacco, and authorized confiscation for viola- tion of the act. Immediately on the passage of this act, Colonel Bondinot entered into official correspondence with the secre- tary of the interior, and obtained from that high official and his law adviser a construction of the revenue act of 1868, and the treaty of 1866, exempting his manufacturing enterprise from taxation - a construction in accord with the highest obli- gations of national faith, and one about which, it seemed, there could be no grave doubt in the minds of jurists, especially in view of the fact that it had been universally conceded that the legislative department had no power to annul a solemn treaty compact.
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