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Edward Beale was born on February 4, 1822, in the District of Columbia. His father was George Beale, a paymaster in the navy, who had won a Congressional Medal for gallantry in the battle on Lake Champlain, September 11, 1814; and his mother was Emily Truxtun, youngest daughter of the famous Commodore.
Edward was a student at Georgetown College when, at the solicitation of his widowed mother, he was appointed by President Jackson to the Naval School, from which, in 1842, he graduated.
Early in October 1845, Edward sailed on the frigate Congress, under Commodore Stockton, for California, but twenty days later was sent back with important dispatches. After a long and roundabout voyage, the first of many government missions that were to carry him tens of thousands of miles, he reached Washington in the middle of March 1846. Promoted to the grade of master, he sailed for Panama and overtook the Congress at Callao, Peru, in May. Hostilities with Mexico had already begun when the vessel reached Monterey on July 20, and he was at once detached to serve with the land forces. He was with the small body under Lieut. Gillespie that left San Diego and joined Kearny's column just before the disastrous battle of San Pasqual, and was one of the three men (his Delaware Indian servant and Kit Carson being the other two) who, after the battle, performed the desperately heroic act of creeping through the Mexican lines and carrying the news of Kearny's plight to Stockton.
Two months later (February 9, 1847), still suffering greatly from the effects of that adventure, he was sent east, in the company of Carson and a small guard, with dispatches. He reached Washington about the first of June, and in October was a witness for Frémont in the court-martial of "the Pathfinder" instituted by Kearny. As a bearer of dispatches he was now to make, within the short space of two years, six journeys from ocean to ocean. On the second of these (July-September 1848), when he crossed Mexico at imminent danger of his life, he brought the first authentic news of the gold discoveries and a bag of the precious metal. After the fourth journey he was married, but immediately started west again. In December he was back in Washington, where for a time he rested. On August 3, 1850, he was made a lieutenant. In the following May he resigned from the navy and returned to California as a manager for W. H. Aspinwall and Commodore Stockton, who had acquired large properties there.
By November 1852 Beale was again in Washington. President Fillmore appointed him superintendent of Indian affairs for California and Nevada, and Congress, on March 3, 1853, appropriated $250, 000 for making effective a project of his for improving the condition of his wards. With his kinsman, Gwinn Harris Heap, and a party of twelve others he left Westport May 6, making on the way a preliminary survey for a railroad, and, traversing southern Colorado and southern Utah, reached Los Angeles on August 22. He held this office until 1856, receiving from the governor of the state the appointment of brigadier-general of militia. In the following year, by appointment of President Buchanan, he commanded an expedition to survey a wagon road from Fort Defiance, New Mexico, to the Colorado River, using for transport a part of the camel herd he had persuaded the Government to import from Tunis. In 1858-59 he surveyed another road to the Colorado River, this time from Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Beale was appointed, shortly after Lincoln's inauguration, surveyor general of California and Nevada, and, though he asked instead for service in the army, was induced to retain this post until the end of the war. He then retired to the Rancho Tejon, an immense tract that he had bought near the present Bakersfield. Later he bought the Decatur house in Washington, and from about 1870 usually spent half the year in each home. In 1876 President Grant appointed him minister to Austria-Hungary, a post that he held for a year. He died at his Washington home.
Edward Beale was a member of the Republican party.
Quotes from others about the person
"A sparkling combination of scholar, gentleman and Indian fighter, " Charles Nordhoff described him after a visit to his ranch in 1872.
Edward Beale was married on June 27, 1849, to Mary, the daughter of Representative Samuel Edwards, of Chester, Pennsylvania.
