Brent, Joseph Lancaster, 1826-1905

Joseph Lancaster Brent (1826-1905) was born in Maryland, studied law and became an attorney in Louisiana, and moved to San Francisco in 1851 before he finally settled in Los Angeles. Twice elected to the California State Legislature (1856-60), he was also a Los Angeles city councilman (1851-52), city attorney (1852-54), and superintendent of schools (1853-54). After the outbreak of the United States Civil War, he served under John Bankhead Magruder in 1862 in the Peninsular Campaign and then was assigned to Richard Taylor's district of Western Louisisana. In mid-February of 1863 he led an expedition up the Mississippi River that resulted in the capture of the Union ironlclad "Indianola." The following year he was appointed brigadier general and commanded Brent's Cavalry Brigade until the end of the conflict. After the war he practiced law in Maryland until he married Frances Rosella, daughter of Louisiana sugar planter and U.S. Congressman Duncan Farrar Kenner, and he managed his father-in-law's sugar plantations in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. He returned to Baltimore in 1889 and spent the last years of his life practicing law and writing essays about foreign affairs and the United States economy and a book of Civil War memoirs.

Confederate army officer.

Born in Maryland, Brent studied law at Georgetown College, practiced in the Attakapas region of Louisiana, and then moved to Los Angeles, California in 1850, where he served two terms in the state legislature. In 1861 he joined the Confederate Army as a major, serving under Gen. John Magruder in the Peninsula, Wilderness and Richmond campaigns. He then served in Louisiana under Gen. Richard Taylor, attaining the rank of chief of artillery and ordnance.

In 1864 he was promoted to brigadier general of the cavalry and participated in the fighting in western Louisiana. After the war, he practiced law in Baltimore until his marriage to Rosella Kenner, the daughter of the prominent Louisiana planter and politician Duncan Kenner, in 1870.

He returned to Louisiana to administer her father's plantations (Hermitage, Houmas, Ashland, Oakland, Roseland, Fashion, Bowdon, and Tensas) until Kenner's death in 1887. He returned to Baltimore, where he practiced law and participated in state government. Joseph and Rosella Kenner Brent had a daughter, Miss Nanine Brent, and son, Duncan Kenner Brent.