Robert Alexander Cameron

Robert Alexander Cameron was born February 22, 1828, in Brooklyn, New York and moved with his parents to Valparaiso, Indiana in 1840. He graduated from Indiana Medical College in 1849 and studied at Rush Medical College in Chicago. He gave up his studies and eventually purchased the Valparaiso Republican in 1857. In 1860, Cameron served as a Lincoln delegate at the Republican convention in Chicago. He also served in the Indiana House of Representatives. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Cameron entered the 9th Indiana, a three-month regiment, as a captain and served under George B. McClellan in western Virginia. He re-enlisted at the end of the three-month term and became colonel of the 19th Indiana. He had a reputation for independence and leadership and was well liked by the men of his regiment. He earned the praise of Colonel Solomon Meredith following a skirmish at Chain Bridge in September 1861 where he “rode the lines giving orders and maintaining a calmness that was not even shattered when the concussion of a shell brought his horse to its knees.” Cameron, unable to get along well with the equally strong-willed Meredith, appealed to Governor Oliver P. Morton to be removed from the regiment and was transferred to the 34th Indiana Infantry where he served as lieutenant colonel and colonel. He later became brigadier general of volunteers on August 11, 1863. Cameron fought at New Madrid and Island #10, the capture of Memphis, and the siege of Vicksburg. He commanded a division of the XIII Corps in the Red River campaign of 1864 and briefly the corps itself. He finished the war in district command at Thibodaux, Louisiana, in the Department of the Gulf. He was brevetted major general of volunteers March 13, 1865, and resigned his commission on June 22, 1865. Cameron was active in establishing farm colonies in Colorado. In 1870, he was influential in founding the city of Greeley, Colorado, and, in 1871, was elected president of Greeley’s board of trustees. He resigned to accept superintendency of the colony, which established Colorado Springs and later took part in an attempt to establish Fort Collins, Colorado. He lived in San Francisco for a few years then returned to Colorado to serve as a postal clerk in Denver and warden of the state penitentiary at Canon City. Robert Alexander Cameron died March 15, 1894, on his farm near Canon City and was buried there.

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