Richard Irving Dodge (1827-1895)

He was born at Huntsville, North Carolina. His paternal grandmother was a sister of the celebrated author Washington Irving. He was a career officer in the U.S. Army, joining as a cadet in 1844 and retiring as a Colonel in 1891. In 1881, he was appointed Aide-De-Camp to General William Tecumseh Sherman who wrote in his memoirs, "... the vacancy made by Colonel McCook was filled by Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, Twenty-third Infantry then serving at a cantonment on the Upper Canadian border - an officer who had performed cheerfully and well a full measure of frontier service, was a capital sportsman, and of a perfect war record. He also remained with me until his promotion as Colonel of the Eleventh Infantry, 26 January 1882."

Having served for many years on the Western Plains and participated in a number of conflicts with the indigenous Indians, in 1882 Dodge published "Our Wild Indians: Thirty Three Years Experience Among The Red Men of The Great West". The book is an acclaimed primary source about the U.S. Army operations of the time and the lives of the Native American Warriors of the Plains. He married a distant cousin-by-marriage, Julia Paulding, granddaughter of General William Paulding, Mayor of New York City.