Career
He lived among cousins who regarded him as a brother. In the American Civil War, Sandlin advanced from a private with the "Minden Blues" infantry regiment at Camp Moore in Tangipahoa Parish to first lieutenant in the Army of Northern Virginia under Generals Robert East. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. He was wounded in 1863 and held as a prisoner of war until he was paroled at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 10, 1865.Upon his discharge, he walked his way back to Webster Parish.
Sandlin, who had been admitted after self-study to the practice of law, was involved in the overthrow of the Carpetbagger government with the election of in 1876 of Francis T. Nicholls as the Redeemer governor over the Republican Stephen B. Packard.
Sandlin was appointed the district attorney of territory in North Louisiana stretching from the Red to the Ouachita rivers at the time Webster Parish was created in 1871 from neighboring Claiborne Parish. He published for a time the newspaper The Minden Advertiser, one of several weeklies in circulation long before the Minden Press-Herald became the daily newspaper for the region.
He established a model farm at the McIntyre Community west of Minden and was active in the Farmers" Alliance as a traveling speaker on farm issues. He stepped down after a year to accept appointment from United States. President Grover Cleveland as the postmaster at Minden.
In 1869, Sandlin wed the former Irene McIntyre (1840-1922), a Louisiana native and the daughter of Doctor Alexander McIntyre, one of the first physicians in Minden.
Her brother, John Doctorate. McIntyre also fought in the Civil War with the Minden Blues. Alexander McIntyre Leary, the son of West. P. and Flavia Leary, was the mayor of Minden from 1903 to 1905 and a businessman in Minden and later Shreveport.
