Born into slavery and of mixed race, during the American Civil War he left a position as steward on a Confederate steamboat to move to New Orleans, which had been taken over by Union troops.

After the war he became politically active in the Republican Party during the Reconstruction era, where he was an ally of several other leading men of color in the city and state.

Lewis raised two companies of colored infantry and was mustered into the First Louisiana Volunteer Native Guards as captain of one of these, Company K.[1] While a minority of the members had been free men of color before the war, the majority of troops were slaves newly freed by their escape from plantations and joining Union lines.

[2] After the war, Lewis returned to New Orleans, where he worked as a permit and custom-house broker until the opening of ocean trade and the start of the Reconstruction Era.

He was appointed as traveling agent for the educational department of the Freedmen's Bureau and worked to establish schools for freed slaves throughout Louisiana.

In 1869, Lewis refused to support Seymour and Blair's presidential ticket, and as a result, Perry Fuller removed him from the position.

Custom House and was led by federal appointees, including Lewis, Stephen B. Packard, a US Marshal; and James F. Casey, Collector of the Port of New Orleans and brother-in-law to President Ulysses S. Grant.

Fornery Confederate General, James Longstreet, was the head of the Louisiana state militia, and was called to defend the statehouse from an attempt by Carter and the Ring to take over the government.

[1] In December 1879, Lewis attempted to resolve a political feud between fellow Republicans Emile Detiege and Ernest and Onezyphore Delahoussaye.

[10] At the 1880 Republican National Convention, Lewis was one of the old guard of "306" who supported Ulysses S. Grant until the final vote, which was won by eventual president, James A.

[1] Lewis returned to public life on May 1, 1883, when he was appointed United States Surveyor-General for the Louisiana District to replace James A. Gla, who had been accused of poor management.

[11] In January 1884, he was appointed by Secretary of the Treasury Charles J. Folger to superintendent of the United States bonded warehouse in New Orleans and continued to hold the position of surveyor-general of Louisiana.

[3] During this period, Louisiana was dominated by white conservative Democrats, and the legislature passed a new constitution that effectively disenfranchised Lewis and most African Americans.

[13] In October 1890 Lewis was one of the Committee of Fifty appointed by Mayor Joseph A. Shakspeare to investigate the murder that month of New Orleans Police Department Chief David Hennessy.

Lewis was one of the signatories of a letter to the Italian community, urging people to inform the committee about the suspects, and threatening extrajudicial action.

In the 1890s and early 1900s, Lewis and Walter L. Cohen were the most important political allies in Louisiana of Booker T. Washington, president of Tuskegee Institute and a proponent of moderation in race issues.

Lewis supported the Warmouth wing in an atmosphere of Democrats conducting extreme vote suppression of African Americans.

[17] In 1890, Lewis claimed that he was a member of a post of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) in 1865 and 1866 but that it broke up in the Mechanics Union riot in 1866.