Beall moved to what is now Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 1835, where he made a fortune in land speculation, and was admitted to the bar and practiced law. In the 1840s, he settled in Taycheedah.
Between 1832 and 1856, Beall loaned the Stockbridge and Munsee Indians' delegations to Washington, D.C. some $3,000 for their expenses while they pursued claims against the federal government. He was promised one third of whatever they recovered, but when they won their case, he claimed and recovered only his actual expenditures.[1]
Beall was a delegate to both the first and second Wisconsin constitutional conventions from Marquette County, one of only six men to do so, as most members of the first convention declined to serve in the second.[2]
During the American Civil War, he was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel of the 18th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment under Colonel James S. Alban. The 18th Wisconsin was organized in February 1862, proceeded to Tennessee in March, and was thrown into battle at Shiloh a day after its arrival. Beall was wounded in the battle and his leg was amputated below the knee. Colonel Alban was killed, along with the Regiment's third-in-command, Major Josiah W. Crane. After recovering, Beall was second-in-command of a prisoner of war camp in Elmira, New York, where the prisoners nicknamed him "old peg-leg" and accused him of a pattern of repeated cruelty and abuse.[4]
Death
After briefly returning to Wisconsin after the war, Beall moved to Helena, Montana, where, on September 26, 1868, he was shot following an argument with a newspaper editor.[5] He was re-interred in 1907 at Forestvale Cemetery in Helena.[6]
Family life
The son of Lewis and Eliza Beall, in 1829, he married Elizabeth Fenimore Cooper, a niece of James Fenimore Cooper, and they had seven children.[citation needed] His eldest daughter, Mary Morris Beall, was the second wife of Levi Hubbell, a prominent Wisconsin lawyer, judge and Democratic politician in early Wisconsin.[7]
^Viola, Herman J. Diplomats in Buckskins: A History of Indian Delegations in Washington City, Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995; p. 57
