Gen. Samuel Curtis Chronicled in First Written Biography

Samuel Ryan Curtis was one of the North’s most successful generals during the American Civil War. He never lost a battle and was the victor at several key battles, including Pea Ridge. He commanded Union forces in the Trans-Mississippi and negotiated peace with the Sioux late in the war. A nationally-known civil engineer before the war, he also helped found the Republican Party. Today, he is almost entirely forgotten.

“Union General: Samuel Ryan Curtis and Victory in the West” by William L. Shea examines Curtis’s life. Shea reveals an extraordinary man and someone important to American history. His contributions were important in three different fields: politics, engineering, and the military. The first biography of the man, it is a worthy examination of his life.

Born near Lake Champlain in 1805, Curtis grew up in Ohio. He became in turn a clerk, a civil engineer (developing water projects and later railroad rights of way), a West Point cadet, a lawyer, and a politician. During the Mexican–American War, he commanded the Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry regiment. He served as city engineer in St. Louis, then moved to Iowa to oversee public works and railroad projects in that state.

Curtis entered national politics in the 1850s and was elected to the House of Representatives for Iowa in 1856. An early supporter of Abraham Lincoln, he helped Lincoln get the presidential nomination. Curtis sponsored the first transcontinental railroad act. When the Civil War started, he resigned his seat and took command of the Second Iowa Volunteer Infantry.

Shea follows Curtis through the Civil War, where he had an outstanding record, rising to command of the Army of the Border. The author examines the reasons Curtis never got his due as a general. Curtis served exclusively west of the Mississippi, far from the press and public attention. Although Curtis attended West Point, Grant considered Curtis to be a political general, depreciating his strategic abilities. Curtis was also an early abolitionist, a position unpopular in the war’s opening year. Finally, he died in 1866, before writing his memoirs. These all combined to reduce Curtis to obscurity.

This biography may focus some well-deserved and fresh attention on Curtis. A well-written study of one man’s life, it is both meticulously researched and a fascinating story, written in an engaging way. Shea is a worthy advocate of man deserving attention.

“Union General: Samuel Ryan Curtis and Victory in the West” by William L. Shea (Potomac Books, January 2023).

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.