Leonard Wright Colby

After his discharge from the Union army, in 1865, he with about fifty others from his regiment enlisted with the forces of Maximilian, serving with the rank of captain for several months, until his resignation, in December, 1865.

In the fall of the same year, he entered the University of Wisconsin, in the regular classical course, and he was graduated in June, 1871, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, again taking the highest honors of his class.

He marched his battalion from Beatrice to Red Cloud, thence to northern Nebraska and Wyoming in pursuit of bands of marauding Native Americans.

He had command of the Nebraska state troops and six companies of United States regulars during the labor strike in Omaha in March, 1882, at which time the city was placed under martial law; he was re-commissioned colonel July 10, 1884, and before the end of his term, on April 11, 1887, was promoted, by appointment and commission, to brigadier general and placed in command of the First Brigade, comprising two infantry regiments, a troop of cavalry, and a battery of artillery.

[4] During the winter of 1890–1891, Colby and his command were called into active service on the occasion of the uprising of the Sioux Indians of Pine Ridge and other agencies in South Dakota and Nebraska.

The command took part with great credit in the engagement at Wounded Knee and many skirmishes along the borders of the Badlands, where the hostile forces were located, and won the congratulations of Major General Nelson A.

On his return home, Colby was presented with a gold medal for "gallant and efficient services rendered the state of Nebraska."

In January, 1899, he was sent to Havana, Cuba, and upon his return to Washington, D.C. at the end of February of that year, he was mustered out of the service, with the rank of brigadier general of volunteers.

In June, 1891, Colby was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison as Assistant Attorney General of the United States, his duties embracing, among other important litigation, the defense of claims for damages against the government and Indian tribes.

In the meantime, he served as government agent and attorney for the draft board, as chairman of the Gage County Council of Defense, as a member of the War Works Committee, and took an active part in the campaigns for the several Liberty Loans, the Red Cross and Y.M.C.A.

[1] Colby married Clara Dorothy Bewick in 1872 and they removed to Beatrice, Nebraska where she founded, published, and edited The Woman’s Tribune, a suffragist newspaper.

In 1891, Colby returned home from the Wounded Knee with a Sioux baby, Zintkala Nuni ("Lost Bird"), whom he named Marguerite (or Margaret) Elizabeth and whom he adopted while his wife was away lecturing.