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.

From the description of Papers of Joseph Lancaster Brent, 1850-1939. (Huntington Library, Art Collections & Botanical Gardens). WorldCat record id: 228721071

...