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Senate Years of Service: 1875-1887 Party: Democrat
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Library of Congress
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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.
BibliographyDictionary 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.
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