Stevens G. Cowdrey was born in 1838 in Plymouth, New Hampshire. He received a medical degree from Harvard University and initially practiced medicine in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he married Mary Hall. He served as a Union physician during the Civil War, and in 1868 was appointed Assistant Surgeon in the U.S. Army. Dr. Cowdrey served at various frontier military posts, including Fort Harker in Ellsworth County, Kansas and Fort Gibson in Oklahoma's Indian Territory. He was promoted to the rank of Major in 1890. Dr. Cowdrey died at New York City in 1891.
Wendell Phillips Garrison, the recipient of Cowdrey's two letters, graduated from Harvard University in 1861. He was literary editor of The Nation from 1865 to 1906.
From the guide to the Letters to Wendell Phillips Garrison (, The Nation), February 16, 1870 and October 8, 1871, (University of Kansas Kenneth Spencer Research Library Kansas Collection)
