Joseph R. West

Joseph R. West

Joseph Rodman West (born September 19, 1822 in New Orleans , †  October 31, 1898 in Washington, DC ) was an American politician ( Republican Party ) who represented the state of Louisiana in the US Senate . He also served as a general in the Union Army during the Civil War .

Early years

Joseph West was a toddler when his parents moved him to Philadelphia in 1824 , where he was educated in private schools. From 1836 to 1837 he attended the University of Pennsylvania before returning to New Orleans in 1841. During the Mexican-American War he held the rank of captain and led a regiment of volunteers from Washington, DC and Maryland. From 1849 he worked in the newspaper business in San Francisco . He owned the San Francisco Price Current there .

In the Civil War

After the outbreak of the Civil War, West joined the Union Army in 1861, where he initially served as a lieutenant in an infantry regiment from California . He was later promoted to colonel and eventually brigadier general. He spent most of the war in the New Mexico Territory and the Arizona Territory .

In January 1863, West was involved in the murder of the Apache chief Mangas Coloradas , a former ally of the US Army in the war against the Mexicans. Although Mangas Coloradas with a white flag to Fort McLane , near the present-day Hurley ( New Mexico came), he was captured by West's soldiers, tortured and finally killed. Officially, it was said that he was shot while trying to escape.

After the war, Joseph West was raised to the rank of Major General in 1866 .

Public offices

West returned to New Orleans, where he served from 1867 to 1871 as the US Deputy Marshal and as an auditor for the Customs Service.

In 1870 he was elected as a Republican to the US Senate, where he served a full term from March 4, 1871 to March 3, 1877; he did not stand for re-election. During this time he was, among other things, chairman of the railway committee . After retiring from the Senate, he served on the Washington, DC Board of Commissioners from 1882 to 1885 , the district's three-man political leadership body. From 1882 to 1883 he was president of this and thus practically exercised the office of mayor of Washington .

Joseph West retired from politics in 1885 and died in Washington in 1898. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

See also

• List of generals of the Union in the Civil War

Web links

• Joseph R. West in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Joseph R. West in the database of Find a Grave (English)