A collection of material related to the personal and professional life of Joseph Lancaster Brent, American lawyer, politician, and soldier.

Joseph Lancaster Brent (1826-1905) was born in Maryland; he studied law and became an attorney in Louisiana, then moved to San Francisco in 1851 before finally settling in Los Angeles. Brent was twice elected to the California State Legislature from 1856 to 1860; he was also a Los Angeles city councilman from 1851 to 1852, city attorney from 1852 to 1854, and superintendent of schools from 1853 to 1854. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Brent joined the Confederate Army and served under John Bankhead Magruder in the 1862 Peninsular Campaign; he was then assigned to Richard Taylor's district of Western Louisiana. In mid-February of 1863 he led an expedition up the Mississippi River that resulted in the capture of the Union ironclad steamer "Indianola." The following year he was appointed brigadier general and commanded Brent's Cavalry Brigade until the end of the war. After the war Brent practiced law in Maryland until he married Frances Rosella Kenner, daughter of Louisiana sugar planter and U.S. Congressman Duncan Farrar Kenner; after their marriage, he managed his father-in-law's sugar plantations in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. Brent returned to Baltimore in 1889 and spent the last years of his life practicing law and writing essays about foreign affairs, the United States economy, and a memoir of the Civil War.

10.5 Linear Feet (9 boxes)

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