Eugene Fitch Ware was born on May 29, 1841, in Hartford, Connecticut, to Hiram and Amanda Ware. His father was a saddle and harness maker who owned $15,000 of real estate and $5,000 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Burlington, Iowa, and by 1860, he was working as a bookkeeper.

 

He enlisted in the Union army on April 20, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in the 1^st Iowa Infantry. As he later recalled, “I enlisted the day we got news of Fort Sumter…I was just nineteen then. I belonged to a zouave drill company that was famous throughout the West for fancy drilling all boys. Minute war broke out, nothing would do us but we must go. And such pulling and using of influence! Every one was afraid he’d be left out on that first roll, and that the war’d be over in sixty days and he would not get to go.”

 

He mustered out on August 21, 1861, when his term of enlistment expired. He returned to the Union army on October 21, 1861, once again serving as a private in the 1^st Iowa Infantry. He was promoted to quartermaster sergeant on January 15, 1862, and he mustered out on October 25, 1862. He later served in the 4^th Iowa Cavalry and the 7^th Iowa Cavalry, and he eventually earned a promotion to captain. He mustered out for the final time on May 17, 1866.

 

He settled in Sheridan, Kansas, after the war, and he earned a living as a saddler. By 1870, he owned $400 of real estate and $810 of personal property. He moved to Fort Scott, Kansas, in the 1870s, and he married Jeanette Huntington around 1874. They had at least four children: Abby, born around 1876; Eugene, born around 1879; Jeannette, born around 1882; and Amelia, born around 1888. He worked as a lawyer, and he edited the Fort Scott Monitor.

 

He supported the Republican Party, and he served in the Kansas state legislature from 1879 until 1883. In 1902, he received an appointment as commissioner for the United States Pension Bureau, and he held the position for the next two years. He applied for a federal pension in February 1907 and eventually received one.

 

He moved to Kansas City, Kansas, around 1909, and he practiced law until his retirement in 1911. He died on July 1, 1911, in Cascade, Colorado.

 

Image: Eugene F. Ware (courtesy Wikicommons)

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