Samuel Cutler Ward
Encyclopedia
Samuel Ward was a poet, author, and gourmet, and in the years after the Civil War he was widely known as the "King of the Lobby." He combined delicious food, fine wines, and good conversation to create a new type of lobbying
in Washington, DC—social lobbying—over which he reigned for more than a decade.
into an old New England family. His father, Samuel Ward
, was a highly respected banker with the firm of Prime, Ward, and King. His grandfather, Col. Samuel Ward
(1756–1832), was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. His mother, Julia Cutler Ward, was related to Francis Marion
, the "Swamp Fox" of the American Revolution
.
When Sam's mother died while he was a student at the Round Hill School
in Northampton, Massachusetts, his father became morbidly obsessed with his children's moral, spiritual, and physical health. It wasn't until he was a student at Columbia College, from which he graduated in 1831, that Sam began to learn about the wider world.
The more he learned, the less he wanted to become a banker. He convinced his father first to let him study in Europe. He stayed for four years, mastering several languages, enjoying high society, earning a doctorate degree from the University of Tübingen, and, in Heidelberg
, meeting Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
, who became his friend for life. Sam literally dined out for decades on stories of his experiences during these years.
Back in New York, he tried to settle into the life of a young banker. In January 1838, he married Emily Astor, daughter of Margaret Armstrong Astor and William Backhouse Astor, Sr.
and granddaughter of John Jacob Astor
, the richest man in America. In November 1838, a daughter, Margaret, was born.
Sam's father died unexpectedly in November 1839. Next, his brother Henry died suddenly of typhoid fever. In February 1841, Emily Astor Ward gave birth to a son, but within days both she and the baby died. Sam was executor of his father's several–million–dollar estate, partner now in a prestigious banking firm, guardian of his three sisters, a widower, father of a toddler, and 27 years old.
In 1843, Sam married a beautiful fortune–hunter from New Orleans, Medora Grymes, who bore two sons in quick succession. Urged on by his wife, Sam began speculating on Wall Street. In September 1847, the financial world was stunned by news that Prime, Ward and Co. (King had wisely withdrawn) had collapsed.
Broke, Sam joined the '49ers
rushing to California
. He opened a store on the San Francisco waterfront; plowed his profits into real estate; claimed he made a quarter of a million dollars in three months; and lost it all when fire destroyed his wharves and warehouses. For a time he operated a ferry in the California wilderness; he alluded to mysterious schemes in Mexico
and South America; and he bobbed up in New York a wealthy man again.
He plunged back into speculating and lost all of his money again, and with it went Medora's affection. This time he finagled a berth on a diplomatic mission to Paraguay
. When he sailed home in 1859, he brought with him a secret agreement with the president of Paraguay to lobby on that country's behalf and headed to Washington, DC, to begin a new career.
Sam was a Democrat
with many friends and family in the South. He also believed in gradual emancipation, which put him at odds with his sister, Julia Ward Howe
, who would later write "The Battle Hymn of the Republic
," and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe
. But there was no question that he would remain loyal to the Union. He put his dinner table at the disposal of his neighbor Secretary of State William Henry Seward. His elegant meals, which had already begun to be noticed, provided the perfect cover for Northerners and Southerners looking for neutral ground. In the early days of the war, Sam also traveled through the Confederacy with British journalist William Howard Russell
, secretly sending letters full of military details back to Seward for which he surely would have been hanged or shot if exposed.
In 1862, he told Seward he was wrong to think that the Confederacy would have rejoined the Union had war been averted: "I differ from you. I found among the leaders a malignant bitterness and contemptuous hatred of the North which rendered this lesson necessary. Wthin two years they would have formed entangling free trade and free navigation treaties with Europe, and have become a military power hostile to us."
His entrée into the Johnson administration was Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch
, who, faced with the colossal task of financial reconstruction, turned for help to Sam, who won for him a partial victory via cookery. Soon Sam was boasting to Julia that he was lobbying for insurance companies, telegraph companies, steamship lines, railroad lines, banking interests, mining interests, manufacturers, investors, and individuals with claims. Everyone, he crowed, wanted him. What they wanted was a seat at his famous table. His plan de campagne for lobbying often began with pâté de campagne, with a client footing the bill.
Sam took great care in composing the menu and guest list for his lobby dinners. If his client's interests were financial, members of the appropriate House and Senate committees received invitations. Mining and mineral rights? That was another group of players. He also orchestrated the talk around the table and used stories from his variegated life like condiments at his dinners.
The results? "Ambrosial nights," gushed one guest. "The climax of civilization," another enthused. But how did these delightful evenings serve his clients' ends? Subtly, and therein lies what set Sam Ward apart as a lobbyist. He claimed, and guests agreed, that he never talked directly about a "project" over dinner. Instead, he let a good food, wine, and company educate and convince, launch schemes or nip them in the bud. At these evenings new friendships developed, old ones were cemented, and Sam's list of men upon whom he could call lengthened.
This was the hallmark of what reporters labeled the "social lobby," and, by the late 1860s, Sam was hailed in newspapers across the country as its "King." And yet nowhere in this age of corruption and scandal—not in the press, in congressional testimony, or in his own letters or those of his clients—was there any hint that "the King" ever offered a bribe, engaged in blackmail, or used any other such methods to win his ends.
, had been a poor, desperately ill teenager in the California gold fields and Sam had nursed him back to health. Keene never forgot his kindness. He manipulated railroad stock with his good "SAMaritan" in mind, and, when he came East in 1878, he gave Sam the profits—nearly $750,000.
With this dramatic change in his circumstances, the "King" abdicated his crown, decamped for New York, and naively backed unscrupulous strangers developing a grand new resort on Long Island. To no one's surprise but Sam's, the project failed and Sam's final fortune evaporated.
In order to evade creditors, Sam sailed for England. He bobbed up in London and was straightaway entertained by his many friends there and then moved on to Italy. During Lent in 1884, he became ill near Naples. On the morning of May 19, he dictated one last light–hearted letter and died.
Sam's book of poetry, Lyrical Recreations, soon sank into obscurity. His hilarious anonymous magazine accounts of his stint in the gold fields were edited into a volume entitled Sam Ward in the Gold Rush in 1949. For years after his death, bar patrons ordered "Sam Wards," a drink he invented of cracked ice, a peel of lemon, and yellow Chartreuse
. Restaurants carried Chicken Saute Sam Ward on their menus for decades. He was immortalized by his nephew author Francis Marion Crawford
as the delightful Mr. Bellingham in Dr. Claudius. And Sam's name has been kept alive by scholars speculating upon the identity of the anonymous author of "The Diary of a Public Man
," published in 1879.
The social lobby that Sam Ward perfected also lives on. Although entertaining by lobbyists has been circumscribed by legislation, it endures because, as Sam understood, bringing people together over good food, wine, and conversation remains a fruitful way to conduct business. As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. noted 100 years after Sam's death, "...every close student of Washington knows half the essential business of government is still transacted in the evening...where the sternest purpose lurks under the highest frivolity." Sam Ward's art was to guarantee that the guests who enjoyed his ambrosial nights never focused on the purpose that lurked beneath his perfectly cooked poisson.
Lobbying
Lobbying is the act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in the government, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying is done by various people or groups, from private-sector individuals or corporations, fellow legislators or government officials, or...
in Washington, DC—social lobbying—over which he reigned for more than a decade.
Early Life
Samuel Ward, the first of six children and called Sam by one and all, was born in New York CityNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
into an old New England family. His father, Samuel Ward
Samuel Ward (banker)
Samuel Ward was a United States banker.-Biography:His father was also named Samuel Ward. The father was a soldier in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and a merchant afterwards...
, was a highly respected banker with the firm of Prime, Ward, and King. His grandfather, Col. Samuel Ward
Samuel Ward, Jr.
Samuel Ward, Jr. was an American Revolutionary War soldier and delegate to the secessionist Hartford Convention.-Biography:Ward was born in Westerly, Rhode Island on November 17, 1756 as the fifth child of founding trustee of Brown University, Continental Congress delegate and colonial governor of...
(1756–1832), was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. His mother, Julia Cutler Ward, was related to Francis Marion
Francis Marion
Francis Marion was a military officer who served in the American Revolutionary War. Acting with Continental Army and South Carolina militia commissions, he was a persistent adversary of the British in their occupation of South Carolina in 1780 and 1781, even after the Continental Army was driven...
, the "Swamp Fox" of the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
.
When Sam's mother died while he was a student at the Round Hill School
Round Hill School
The Round Hill School for Boys in Northampton, Massachusetts, founded by George Bancroft and Joseph Cogswell in 1823, though it failed as a viable venture — it closed in 1834 — was an early effort to elevate secondary education in the United States for the sons of the New England elite...
in Northampton, Massachusetts, his father became morbidly obsessed with his children's moral, spiritual, and physical health. It wasn't until he was a student at Columbia College, from which he graduated in 1831, that Sam began to learn about the wider world.
The more he learned, the less he wanted to become a banker. He convinced his father first to let him study in Europe. He stayed for four years, mastering several languages, enjoying high society, earning a doctorate degree from the University of Tübingen, and, in Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
, meeting Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
, who became his friend for life. Sam literally dined out for decades on stories of his experiences during these years.
Back in New York, he tried to settle into the life of a young banker. In January 1838, he married Emily Astor, daughter of Margaret Armstrong Astor and William Backhouse Astor, Sr.
William Backhouse Astor, Sr.
William Backhouse Astor, Sr. was an American businessman and member of the Astor family.-Origins and schooling:...
and granddaughter of John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor
John Jacob Astor , born Johann Jakob Astor, was a German-American business magnate and investor who was the first prominent member of the Astor family and the first multi-millionaire in the United States...
, the richest man in America. In November 1838, a daughter, Margaret, was born.
Sam's father died unexpectedly in November 1839. Next, his brother Henry died suddenly of typhoid fever. In February 1841, Emily Astor Ward gave birth to a son, but within days both she and the baby died. Sam was executor of his father's several–million–dollar estate, partner now in a prestigious banking firm, guardian of his three sisters, a widower, father of a toddler, and 27 years old.
In 1843, Sam married a beautiful fortune–hunter from New Orleans, Medora Grymes, who bore two sons in quick succession. Urged on by his wife, Sam began speculating on Wall Street. In September 1847, the financial world was stunned by news that Prime, Ward and Co. (King had wisely withdrawn) had collapsed.
Broke, Sam joined the '49ers
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
rushing to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. He opened a store on the San Francisco waterfront; plowed his profits into real estate; claimed he made a quarter of a million dollars in three months; and lost it all when fire destroyed his wharves and warehouses. For a time he operated a ferry in the California wilderness; he alluded to mysterious schemes in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and South America; and he bobbed up in New York a wealthy man again.
He plunged back into speculating and lost all of his money again, and with it went Medora's affection. This time he finagled a berth on a diplomatic mission to Paraguay
Paraguay
Paraguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
. When he sailed home in 1859, he brought with him a secret agreement with the president of Paraguay to lobby on that country's behalf and headed to Washington, DC, to begin a new career.
Sam was a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
with many friends and family in the South. He also believed in gradual emancipation, which put him at odds with his sister, Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe
Julia Ward Howe was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet, most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".-Biography:...
, who would later write "The Battle Hymn of the Republic
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a hymn by American writer Julia Ward Howe using the music from the song "John Brown's Body". Howe's more famous lyrics were written in November 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. It became popular during the American Civil War...
," and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe
Samuel Gridley Howe
Samuel Gridley Howe was a nineteenth century United States physician, abolitionist, and an advocate of education for the blind.-Early life and education:...
. But there was no question that he would remain loyal to the Union. He put his dinner table at the disposal of his neighbor Secretary of State William Henry Seward. His elegant meals, which had already begun to be noticed, provided the perfect cover for Northerners and Southerners looking for neutral ground. In the early days of the war, Sam also traveled through the Confederacy with British journalist William Howard Russell
William Howard Russell
William Howard Russell was an Irish reporter with The Times, and is considered to have been one of the first modern war correspondents, after he spent 22 months covering the Crimean War including the Charge of the Light Brigade.-Career:As a young reporter, Russell reported on a brief military...
, secretly sending letters full of military details back to Seward for which he surely would have been hanged or shot if exposed.
In 1862, he told Seward he was wrong to think that the Confederacy would have rejoined the Union had war been averted: "I differ from you. I found among the leaders a malignant bitterness and contemptuous hatred of the North which rendered this lesson necessary. Wthin two years they would have formed entangling free trade and free navigation treaties with Europe, and have become a military power hostile to us."
Career
At the war's end, Sam's friends in high places, his savoir faire, his trove of anecdotes and recipes, and his talents for diplomacy augured well for his success in Washington, where the coals were hot and ready for an era of unprecedented growth and corruption that became known as "the Great Barbeque" or "The Gilded Age."Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post–Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their book The Gilded...
His entrée into the Johnson administration was Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch
Hugh McCulloch
Hugh McCulloch was an American statesman who served two non-consecutive terms as U.S. Treasury Secretary, serving under three presidents.-Biography:...
, who, faced with the colossal task of financial reconstruction, turned for help to Sam, who won for him a partial victory via cookery. Soon Sam was boasting to Julia that he was lobbying for insurance companies, telegraph companies, steamship lines, railroad lines, banking interests, mining interests, manufacturers, investors, and individuals with claims. Everyone, he crowed, wanted him. What they wanted was a seat at his famous table. His plan de campagne for lobbying often began with pâté de campagne, with a client footing the bill.
Sam took great care in composing the menu and guest list for his lobby dinners. If his client's interests were financial, members of the appropriate House and Senate committees received invitations. Mining and mineral rights? That was another group of players. He also orchestrated the talk around the table and used stories from his variegated life like condiments at his dinners.
The results? "Ambrosial nights," gushed one guest. "The climax of civilization," another enthused. But how did these delightful evenings serve his clients' ends? Subtly, and therein lies what set Sam Ward apart as a lobbyist. He claimed, and guests agreed, that he never talked directly about a "project" over dinner. Instead, he let a good food, wine, and company educate and convince, launch schemes or nip them in the bud. At these evenings new friendships developed, old ones were cemented, and Sam's list of men upon whom he could call lengthened.
This was the hallmark of what reporters labeled the "social lobby," and, by the late 1860s, Sam was hailed in newspapers across the country as its "King." And yet nowhere in this age of corruption and scandal—not in the press, in congressional testimony, or in his own letters or those of his clients—was there any hint that "the King" ever offered a bribe, engaged in blackmail, or used any other such methods to win his ends.
Later Life
By the late 1870s, the "King of the Lobby" was slowing down. Although friends urged him to retire, the truth was that he couldn't. Sam was famous, but he was not rich. He lived well—very well indeed—but on other men's money. But then his luck changed once again. Years earlier, a wealthy Californian, James KeeneJames Keene
James Keene is an English football player, who currently plays for the Norwegian Tippeligaen team Fredrikstad FK on loan from IF Elfsborg. He was loaned to Fredrikstad FK hours before the window closed in August 2011.-Early career:...
, had been a poor, desperately ill teenager in the California gold fields and Sam had nursed him back to health. Keene never forgot his kindness. He manipulated railroad stock with his good "SAMaritan" in mind, and, when he came East in 1878, he gave Sam the profits—nearly $750,000.
With this dramatic change in his circumstances, the "King" abdicated his crown, decamped for New York, and naively backed unscrupulous strangers developing a grand new resort on Long Island. To no one's surprise but Sam's, the project failed and Sam's final fortune evaporated.
In order to evade creditors, Sam sailed for England. He bobbed up in London and was straightaway entertained by his many friends there and then moved on to Italy. During Lent in 1884, he became ill near Naples. On the morning of May 19, he dictated one last light–hearted letter and died.
Legacy
Within days of his passing, obituaries appeared in dozens of newspapers in the United States and England. The New York Times obituary filled two entire columns. The New York Tribune correctly concluded that Sam Ward's "greatest achievement was establishing himself in Washington at the head of a profession which, from the lowest depths of disrepute, he raised almost to the dignity of a gentlemanly business....He never resorted to vulgar bribery; he excelled rather in composing the enmities and cementing the rickety friendships which play so large a part in political affairs, and he tempted men not with the purse, but with banquets, graced by vivacious company, and the conversation of wits and people of the world."Sam's book of poetry, Lyrical Recreations, soon sank into obscurity. His hilarious anonymous magazine accounts of his stint in the gold fields were edited into a volume entitled Sam Ward in the Gold Rush in 1949. For years after his death, bar patrons ordered "Sam Wards," a drink he invented of cracked ice, a peel of lemon, and yellow Chartreuse
Chartreuse
Chartreuse may refer to:* Chartreuse * Chartreuse * Chartreuse Mountains, France* Grande Chartreuse, a monastery in the Chartreuse Mountains** Any Carthusian monastery, in the French language...
. Restaurants carried Chicken Saute Sam Ward on their menus for decades. He was immortalized by his nephew author Francis Marion Crawford
Francis Marion Crawford
Francis Marion Crawford was an American writer noted for his many novels, especially those set in Italy, and for his classic weird and fantastic stories.-Life:...
as the delightful Mr. Bellingham in Dr. Claudius. And Sam's name has been kept alive by scholars speculating upon the identity of the anonymous author of "The Diary of a Public Man
The Diary of a Public Man
The Diary of a Public Man was first published anonymously in the North American Review in 1879. The purported Diary’s entries are dated between December 28, 1860, and March 15, 1861, the desperate weeks just before the start of the Civil War...
," published in 1879.
The social lobby that Sam Ward perfected also lives on. Although entertaining by lobbyists has been circumscribed by legislation, it endures because, as Sam understood, bringing people together over good food, wine, and conversation remains a fruitful way to conduct business. As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. noted 100 years after Sam's death, "...every close student of Washington knows half the essential business of government is still transacted in the evening...where the sternest purpose lurks under the highest frivolity." Sam Ward's art was to guarantee that the guests who enjoyed his ambrosial nights never focused on the purpose that lurked beneath his perfectly cooked poisson.
External links
- Kathryn Allamong Jacob, King of the Lobby. The Life and Times of Sam Ward at Google Books
- Samuel Ward, Alias Carlos Lopez UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER LIBRARY BULLETIN Volume XII · Winter 1957 · Number 2