Alfred Stedman Hartwell (June 11, 1836 – August 30, 1912) was a lawyer and American Civil War soldier, who then had another career as cabinet minister and judge in the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Missouri was officially neutral but supporters of the Confederacy had captured Liberty Arsenal, and his company was called up to help recapture the weapons.

[3] In June he returned to Boston and enrolled in Harvard Law School, but by September 1862 became a first lieutenant in the 44th Massachusetts regiment.

When the United States Colored Troops (USCT) were formed for African-American recruits, he was promoted to captain on March 31, 1863, of the 54th Massachusetts.

[3] Morale became a problem when his troops discovered that despite being promised the same pay as their white counterparts, they had a major deduction for a "clothing allowance".

[5] On January 23, 1865,[6] President Abraham Lincoln nominated Hartwell for the award of the honorary grade of brevet brigadier general, to rank from December 30, 1864, for gallant services at the battle of Honey Hill.

[11] On August 15, 1868, he left at the suggestion of fellow Massachusetts lawyer Elisha Hunt Allen, intending to spend a year or two on an adventure to the Hawaiian Islands.

Also living there was John Owen Dominis who was Governor of Oahu, and his wife Lydia, the future Queen Liliʻuokalani.

He quickly learned the Hawaiian language and by December 1868 was instructing juries as a circuit court judge without an interpreter.

In 1873 he hosted a visit of some other former civil war generals, including John Schofield, Rufus Ingalls and Barton S. Alexander, when they investigated the use of Pearl Harbor as a naval base.

As King Lunalilo was dying, Hartwell advised him to name a clear successor, assuming it would be Queen Emma of Hawaii.

However, Lunalilo died before naming an heir to the throne, resulting in a political crisis when the popular Emma was not elected.

[13] In late 1890 he traveled to Washington, D.C., to negotiate on a cable connection between Hawaii and west coast of the United States.

[16] In 1895 Hartwell wrote the document signed by Liliʻuokalani in which she agreed to abdicate, avoiding death sentences for those (including herself) convicted after the 1895 Counter-Revolution in Hawaii.

[17] He formed a law firm with Lorrin Andrews Thurston, one of the leaders of the overthrow, and then added his assistant William F. L.

[21] They had eight children: For his honeymoon the couple traveled first to San Francisco in February 1872, where he found out his father had died on his wedding day.