Généalogie de la famille de PRELLE de la NIEPPE

Biography: Born: Delaware County, Pennsylvania, August 7, 1833. After attending a military academy in nearby Bristol and an engineering school in Wilkington, Delaware, moved to Kansas in 1855 to engage in civil engineering at Leavenworth. As early as April 29, 1861, he had a company of militia at Fort Leavenworth. A month later was formally mustered into Federal service as a Captain of the 1st Kansas Infantry. In December 1861, be became Lieutenant Colonel of the 5th Kansas Cavalry and in March 1862, its Colonel. He was made a Brigadier General, U.S. Volunteers, August 1, 1864. In the interval, and thereafter until mustered out, he served primarily in Missouri and Arkansas. Fought at Wilson\'s Creek and after capture of Little Rock in September 1863, was assigned to command post at Pine Bluff, where in October he repulsed an attack by Confederate General J. S. Marmaduke. Soon after the war he bought a plantation and engaged in cotton farming. In 1868 he was elected the first carpetbagging governor of Arkansas, \"neither the worse nor the best of the gentry\", according to one of his biographers; he remained the Republican boss of Arkansas from then until death. He was defeated for reelection in 1876 by the reenfranchised conservatives, and returned to Arkansas and in 1882 established residence at Eureka Springs, where he managed hotels and railroads. From 1897 until 1905 was ambassador to Mexico in Administration of Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. In about 1912, he moved to Washington, DC, where he died August 25, 1914. He was buried in Section 3, Grave 2035-WS, Arlington National Cemetery. Source: http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/pclayton.htm