Adjutant General of Kentucky: 1864 - 1867.
Compiled by Col. Steven P. Bullard KyANG
Sources:
- Kentucky: A History of the State, by Battle, Perrin, & Kniffin, 1887 (via rootsweb.com)
- Appletons Encyclopedia, 2001, (via famousamericans.net )
Daniel Lindsey The ninth Adjutant General of Kentucky, Gen. Daniel Weisiger Lindsey, earned a nationwide reputation "for the intelligent, earnest and courageous discharge of his duties, and was such as to reflect the highest credit upon him, both as a soldier and a gentleman," according to the 1887 publication Kentucky: A History of the State, by Battle, Perrin, & Kniffin.
Gen. Lindsay served as a key leader of Union forces in Kentucky in the Civil War and was named Adjutant General in the summer of 1864 by Governor Thomas E. Bramlette, serving in that position until the fall of 1867. Born in Frankfort on 21 October 1835, he was a proud descendant of the earliest Kentuckians, who achieved success in the practice of law and business. Lindsey graduated from the Kentucky Military Academy in Frankfort in 1864 and from the Louisville Law School in 1858, entering the practice of law in his hometown with his father, State Representative Thomas N. Lindsey.
With the possibility of war on the horizon, Gen. Lindsey, a staunch Union man in favor of sustaining the federal government, joined the Kentucky State Guards and rapidly rose to the rank of captain. Shortly after the war began, while camping with the State Guards at Alexander's Woods in May 1861, he learned that the State Guard was not to be used in aid of the Government. He promptly marched his company to its armory in Frankfort and resigned his commission. Shortly afterwards, Camp Dick Robinson was opened in Garrard County by George Nelson, the first Union recruitment and training center in the Commonwealth, over the protests of Governor Beriah Magoffin, who proclaimed Kentucky "neutral." Lindsey headed there immediately to assist in organizing Federal troops from Kentucky and received a commission as a colonel from the Military Board of Kentucky to raise a regiment.
Lindsey soon recruited and organized the Twenty-Second Regiment of Kentucky and mustered in at Camp Swiger in Greenup County on December 12, 1861. The regiment was immediately ordered to service in the field. Col. Lindsey, with his command, participated in the campaigns in the Big Sandy Valley under Gen. James Garfield and under Gen. George W. Morgan against and around Cumberland Gap and on to Memphis, Tenn., where he was placed permanently in the command of a brigade. He took his brigade to Gen. U.S. Grant and fought under Grant and Sherman at Arkansas Post, Vicksburg and Jackson, Miss. His health suffered from nearly two years in the field, until, on 14 October 1863, he resigned his command to accept the position of inspector general of Kentucky. He assumed command of the Kentucky Guard in the summer of 1864 and oversaw the military defense of the Commonwealth through the end of the war, as most fighting moved south and east away from Kentucky.
In January, 1868, he rejoined his father in the practice of law in Frankfort. After his father's death in November 1877, he continued alone, becoming recognized as one of the most successful lawyers in the State. A prominent member of the Whig Party prior to the war and the Republican Party following the war, Gen. Lindsey became a popular community leader who steadfastly refused to run for high public office. In July 1868, he became a director of the Branch Bank of Kentucky, and took over as president of the bank in July 1884. He served for many years on the Frankfort City Council and became president of the Capital Gas and Electric Light Company of Frankfort. A vestryman of the Ascension Church (Episcopal) of Frankfort, he married Miss Katherine McIlvaine Fitch in January 1854. They had three sons and two daughters.
Gen. Lindsay lived in the Vest-Lindsey House on 401 Wapping Street in Frankfort, which is open for tours during the week. He died on 4 August 1917 and is buried in the Frankfort Cemetery in Section G, Lot 434, Grave 16.