Rep. John F. Lacey

LACEY, HULL, ROBB, RICE, STEELE

Posted By: Sharyl Ferrall (email)
Date: 12/12/2005 at 06:51:05

John F. Lacey, of Oskaloosa, was born at New Martinsville, West Virginia, May 30, 1841; removed with his parents to Iowa in 1855, and located at his present place of residence; attended private school in New Martinsville, and the public schools in Wheeling, and in private schools under Professors Hull and Robb at Oskaloosa; his education was thus irregularly obtained because of want of means, being compelled to work his own way; learned the trade of brick-laying and plastering, and also devoted some years to agricultural pursuits on his father's farm; when the war broke out he enlisted, at twenty years of age, in Company H, Third Iowa Infantry Volunteers; at the battle of Blue Mills, Missouri, he was captured and taken to Lexinton, where he was paroled with General Mulligan's command; was discharged in November, 1861, under the general order discharging paroled prisoners of war; he immediately returned home and commenced reading law in the office of General S.A. Rice, then Attorney-General of Iowa; in 1862 he was exchanged, and re-enlisted in Company D, Thirty-third Iowa Infantry, of which S.A. Rice was made Colonel; was soon after appointed Sergeant-Major of the regiment, and was promoted to First Lieutenant of Company C in 1863; in 1864 Colonel Rice was made Brigadier-General, and Lieutenant Lacey was appointed his Assistant Adjutant-General; General Rice being mortally wounded at Jenkin's Ferry April 30, 1864, Major Lacey was assigned to duty on the staff of Major-General F. Steele, with whom he served until the end of the war; was finally discharged September 19, 1865, having served nearly four years; he participated in the engagements at Blue Mills, Helena, Little Rock, Terrenior, Elkins's Ford, Prairie d'Ann, Poison Springs, Camden, Jenkins's Ferry, and Blakely's his last service was in Texas, as Adjutant-General for Steele's army on the Rio Grande; upon returning home he was admitted to the bar, and entered upon the practice of his profession, which he has continued to the present time at Oskaloosa; he was elected a member of the General Assembly of Iowa in 1869; was elected Councilman for the First ward of his city in 1880; werved one term as City Solicitor; is married; is the author of Lacey's Railway Digest, being a complete digest of American and foreigh railway cases, in two volumes, and is also the author of the Third Iowa Digest; was elected to the fifty-first Congress as a Republican, recieving 18,009 votes, against 17,181 votes for General J.B. Weaver, Democratic and Union labor candidate, 129 votes for C.L. Haskell, prohibitionist, and 4 votes scattering.

-source: Official Congressional Directory, Fifty-First congress, First Session, Third Ed., Corrected to May 10, 1890; Washington: Government Printing Office, 1890; Iowa Representatives Sixth District, page 41

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