He previously had served as the consul to Elsinore, Denmark, as the United States worked to expand trade in the Baltic Sea area.
Born to a planter family in Walker County, Alabama, Sheats was educated in a local school for the gentry.
[1] Sheats was expelled from the Alabama House in 1862 for his adherence to the Union after the American Civil War had begun.
[1] On May 31, 1869, Sheats was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant as US Consul at Helsinger (often called Elsinore in English-speaking countries), Denmark.
After signing of an 1857 treaty with Denmark that permitted the United States to have tariff-free passage in the Baltic Sea, the US was working in the postwar years to increase its trade in the area.