Preceded by Vacant Name Alexander Boarman | Preceded by Samuel Wells Preceded by Vacant Role Judge | |
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Residence Shreveport, Louisiana, United States | ||
Alma mater University of Kentucky | ||
Alexander "Aleck" Boarman (December 10, 1839 – August 30, 1916) was a United States federal judge appointed to the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana and United States Representative. He fought in the American Civil War for the Confederate States of America from 1861–1865; during the war he was promoted to the rank of captain. After the war, Boarman entered politics and was elected in 1866 as the mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana. As a member of the short-lived Liberal Republican Party, he served in Congress for one year. In 1881, Boarman was named to the U.S. district court by Republican U.S. President James A. Garfield; he held that position for the remaining thirty-five years of his life.
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Early life and military career
Boarman was born in 1839 in Yazoo City, Mississippi. He moved with his father, in 1845, to Louisiana. He graduated in 1860 from the University of Kentucky at Lexington, Kentucky. When the American Civil War began, Boarman joined the Confederacy. His regiment became part of the Army of Northern Virginia. After one year of fighting, Boarman was promoted to the rank of captain in the Confederate States Army, which he held until 1865. He served as the acting assistant Adjutant-General in the Battle of Winchester. His commanding office wrote of the engagement:
I would call particular attention to Capt. Alexander Boarman, acting assistant adjutant-general, and Lieut. Joseph Taylor, acting aide-de-camp, who behaved with much courage, gallantry, and efficiency, and greatly assisted me in the engagement.
Political career and later life
After the war ended, Boarman read law and became a lawyer, having been admitted to the bar in Louisiana in 1866, he was elected that same year as the mayor of Shreveport in the northwestern corner of the state. From 1868 until 1872, Boarman was city attorney for Shreveport. In 1872, Boarman was nominated for the office of Secretary of State of Louisiana, but he lost the general election and then ran for Louisiana's 4th congressional district's vacant seat. He won the election and served as the U.S. Representative from 1872 to 1873. Boarman was unsuccessful for renomination for his U.S. House seat.
Afterward he became a judge to the 10th Judicial Circuit of Louisiana in 1877, a position which he held until 1881. On May 18, 1881, Boarman was confirmed by the United States Senate for a new seat on the District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, created by 21 Stat. 507. It is unclear if he joined the Republican Party after the demise of the Liberal Republican or became a Democrat, as did many former Liberal Republicans at that time. Boarman kept this position until he died in 1916, while he was visiting in Loon Lake in Franklin County in northern New York. He is interred at Oakland Cemetery in Shreveport.