Richard Henry Savage (June 12, 1846 – October 11, 1903) was an American military officer and author who wrote more than 40 books of adventure and mystery, based loosely on his own experiences.

Returning home, Savage was assigned to assess border disputes between the U.S. and Mexico, and he performed railroad survey work in Texas.

Savage returned to San Francisco with his wife to stay for ten years, raising a daughter and taking part in a family business.

of anti-Chinese race riots, Savage stood up for law and order, and thereby gained the respect of San Francisco's leaders, property holders and middle class residents.

This very successful action-and-adventure story was followed by more, at the rate of about three per year, written for the general public rather than for literary critics; the latter were charmed by the first book but scathing of many later ones.

[1] At the start of the American Civil War Savage joined the Union Army, but his father secured his discharge on the grounds of his extreme youth.

Savage's father used his influence to push for California to stay on the Union side, and was rewarded by President Lincoln with the post of Collector of Internal Revenue in which capacity he served between 1861 and 1873.

Despite the danger of Confederate privateers, Savage chose to travel east by way of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company to the Isthmus of Panama, followed by the Atlantic leg to New York, but significant wartime delays prevented him from joining the summer plebes at the academy.

In 1868, Savage graduated sixth in his class of 55 at West Point,[5] and was assigned as brevet second lieutenant with the Army Corps of Engineers at Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay.

[1] In 1871, Savage traveled to Egypt to act with the rank of captain for one year as secretary to Charles Pomeroy Stone, a former American general in the Egyptian Army, serving under Khedive Isma'il Pasha.

[1] Following an honorable discharge from the Egyptian Army, Savage returned to the U.S. and was tasked by Grant to serve as one of three commissioners investigating a series of border incidents between the U.S. and Mexico 1872–74.

At the same time, he worked with Richard King and the nascent Corpus Christi & Rio Grande Railroad as chief surveyor for the route to Laredo.

[7] Her marriage to Savage produced one daughter, who later married Anatol de Carriere, a minor nobleman and an Imperial Russian Councilor of State.

[1] Savage took a prominent role in the civic and social life of the city, and was often called upon to make extemporaneous speeches to large crowds, a skill on which politician and economist Henry George complimented him.

[1] In January 1878, Savage served as chief military executive officer of the Committee of Safety, a group set up to oppose Denis Kearney and his riotous mob of angry supporters who wanted to get rid of Chinese immigrants.

[1] In late 1890 at a friend's house on Lake George in upstate New York, while recovering from a near-fatal case of jungle fever contracted in Honduras, Savage wrote a tale loosely based on his life, entitled My Official Wife.

[1] The Times in London called it "a wonderful and clever tour de force, in which improbabilities and impossibilities disappear, under an air that is irresistible.

In addition to his fiction prose output, Savage published collections of his speeches and essays, and in 1895 wrote a book of poetry dedicated to his wife: After Many Years.

"[12] The "absurd" main character was criticized as unrealistically exposed to mortal danger almost daily, "just escaping dagger thrusts and pistol shots, with results more favorable to the theatrical progress of the story than to his common sense.

Anna Savage warned that if further bloody riots were encouraged by the Tsar's government, "the wealthy Russian aristocracy will be in danger of their lives.