Representative Samuel Galloway

Samuel Galloway (March 20, 1811 – April 5, 1872) was a U.S. Representative from Ohio, state official, Civil War judge advocate, and long‑time Presbyterian lay leader. He was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he attended local public schools before moving west as a young man. In 1830 he relocated to Ohio and settled in Highland County, part of the broader migration of Pennsylvanians into the developing interior of the state. Seeking higher education, he enrolled at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and graduated in 1833, an institution that would remain closely associated with his early professional life.

Following his graduation, Galloway pursued theological studies, attending Princeton Theological Seminary in 1835 and 1836. Although he did not ultimately enter the ministry, this period of study reflected his strong religious commitments and prepared him for later leadership within the Presbyterian Church. He turned to education as a profession in the late 1830s, teaching school in Hamilton, Ohio, in 1836 and 1837, serving on the faculty of Miami University in 1837 and 1838, and then teaching at Hanover College in Indiana in 1839 and 1840. These appointments placed him within the network of emerging Midwestern colleges and academies and established his reputation as an educator before he shifted to the law.

Galloway subsequently read law and, after completing his legal studies, was admitted to the bar in 1843. He commenced the practice of law in Chillicothe, Ohio, an important early center of state politics and government. His abilities soon brought him into public office. In 1844 he was elected Ohio Secretary of State, a position that required him to oversee state records and elections and that placed him at the center of Ohio’s administrative life. That same year he moved to Columbus, the state capital, where he would reside for the remainder of his life. Active in national politics as well, he served as a delegate to the Whig National Convention in 1848, participating in the deliberations of the party during a critical period in the nation’s sectional crisis.

With the breakup of the Whig Party in the 1850s, Galloway aligned with the emerging Opposition Party, a coalition of former Whigs and anti‑Democratic elements. He was elected as an Opposition Party candidate to the Thirty‑fourth Congress and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1855, to March 3, 1857. During his single term in Congress he represented Ohio amid intensifying national debates over slavery and sectionalism. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1856 to the Thirty‑fifth Congress and again failed in his bid for election in 1858 to the Thirty‑sixth Congress. After these defeats, he resumed the practice of law, continuing his legal career in Columbus while remaining an influential figure in Ohio Republican and Unionist circles.

During the Civil War, Galloway’s legal and political experience led to his appointment by President Abraham Lincoln as judge advocate of Camp Chase in Columbus, Ohio, a major Union training and prisoner‑of‑war camp. In this capacity he dealt with military legal matters and issues related to the treatment and discipline of prisoners and troops, contributing to the Union war effort on the home front. After the war, President Andrew Johnson appointed him to investigate conditions in the South during the early period of Reconstruction, assigning him to gather information on political, social, and economic circumstances in the former Confederate states as the federal government shaped its postwar policies.

Galloway remained active in Republican politics in the postwar years. He was nominated at the Republican state convention in 1867 for Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, but he declined the nomination, choosing not to seek statewide executive office again. In 1868 he served as a presidential elector on the Republican ticket for Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler Colfax, casting his electoral vote in support of the victorious national ticket and underscoring his continued prominence within the party. His political career thus spanned the Whig, Opposition, and Republican eras, reflecting the realignment of parties around the issues of slavery, Union, and Reconstruction.

In addition to his public and professional roles, Galloway was deeply involved in religious life. He was for thirteen years a ruling elder of the Presbyterian Church, a position of lay leadership that reflected both his early theological training and his long‑standing commitment to Presbyterian doctrine and governance. This service complemented his civic activities and marked him as a respected figure in both church and community.

Samuel Galloway died in Columbus, Ohio, on April 5, 1872. He was interred in Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, one of the city’s principal burial grounds and the resting place of many of Ohio’s political and civic leaders. His career encompassed education, law, state administration, national legislative service, wartime legal duties, and Reconstruction‑era investigation, leaving a record of public service that extended across several of the most turbulent decades in nineteenth‑century American history.