Stuart, David

Born: 1816-03-12 Brooklyn, New York

Died: 1868-09-12 Detroit, Michigan

Flourished: 1856 to 1861 Chicago, Illinois

David Stuart, attorney, received his early education in Detroit before his family returned east where he continued his education, attending Amherst College with the class of 1837, but did not complete a degree. In 1838, he began reading law in Detroit and qualified at the bar two years later. Stuart opened a law office there and served as a prosecuting attorney from 1849 to 1853. He was elected as a Democrat to represent Michigan in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1853 to 1855, but lost his bid for reelection in 1854. After he completed his term in Congress, Stuart moved to Chicago where he resumed his legal practice and worked as an attorney for the Illinois Central Railroad. He organized two regiments of volunteers for the Union Army in Cook County in 1861, serving as lieutenant colonel of the Forty-Second Illinois Volunteers, then as colonel of the Fifty-Fifth Illinois Volunteers. Stuart was wounded at the Battle of Shiloh. He was afterwards breveted brigadier general but when Abraham Lincoln nominated Stuart to be appointed to the office officially in March 1863, the U.S. Senate refused to confirm him. He married Sarah Benson in 1842 and the pair had several children.

Robert B. Ross, The Early Bench and Bar of Detroit From 1805 to the end of 1850 (Detroit: Richard P. Joy and Clarence M. Burton, 1907), 189-92; Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 1901; Record of the Services of Graduates and Non-Graduates of Amherst College, in the Union Army or Navy During the War of the Rebellion ([Amherst, MA]: Amherst College, 1905), 8; The Christian Intelligencer (New York, NY), 15 October 1842, 3:4; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Detroit, Wayne County, MI, 140; William K. Ackerman, Historical Sketch of the Illinois-Central Railroad (Chicago: Fergus, 1890), 131; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 9, Chicago, Cook County, IL, 41; Otto Eisenschiml, “The 55th Illinois at Shiloh,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 56 (Summer 1963), 193-211; Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1887), 13:231, 283; Detroit Advertiser and Tribune (MI), 18 September 1868, 1:5-6; Gravestone, Elmwood Cemetery, Detroit, MI.