Samuel D. McEnery was an American jurist, governor of Louisiana, and United States senator.
Background
Samuel Douglas McEnery was the son of Henry O'Neil and Caroline H. (Douglas) McEnery. He was born on May 28, 1837 in Monroe, Ouachita Parish, La. His father, originally from Ireland, emigrated to Virginia when quite young, and after living there for some years, removed to Louisiana in 1835 and settled in Monroe, where he became a planter and for eight years was register of the Land Office. His knowledge of land matters enabled him to give valuable information regarding locations for settlement to immigrants from other states, and in this way he contributed greatly to the settlement of northern Louisiana.
Education
Samuel attended the public schools of Monroe, Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala. , the United States Naval Academy, the University of Virginia, and in 1859 graduated from the State and National Law School at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. For a year following his graduation he practised law at Marysville, Mo.
Career
Soon after the outbreak of the Civil War McEnery entered the Confederate service as a member of a Louisiana volunteer company known as the Pelican Grays. In 1862 he was commissioned a lieutenant under General Magruder in Virginia. Later he was placed in charge of an instruction camp at Trenton, La. , and here it seems he was when the war ended. After the war McEnery returned to Monroe, was admitted to the Louisiana bar in 1866, and began to practise his profession, but while he was successful as a lawyer, the bar proved only a stepping-stone to his political career. A democrat in politics, he was in 1879 nominated by that party for the office of lieutenant-governor on a ticket with L. A. Wiltz for governor. They were elected and upon the death of Wiltz in October 1881, McEnery succeeded him as governor. He was reelected governor in 1884 but four years later was defeated for the office by Francis T. Nicholls, who appointed him an associate justice of the state supreme court for the term of twelve years. In 1892, during the struggle for the recharter of the Louisiana Lottery, he was the candidate of the lottery wing of the Democratic party for governor but was defeated by the anti-lottery candidate. On May 28, 1896, he was elected to the United States Senate for the term beginning March 4, 1897, to succeed N. C. Blanchard, and by reelection served until his death in 1910. After a brief illness Samuel died on June 28, 1910 in New Orleans, where he was buried in Metairie Cemetery.
McEnery was a well-proportioned man, with a ruddy face and keen blue eyes. He walked with a slight stoop or forward bend of neck and head. During his later years he was troubled by deafness.
His legal opinions are said to indicate an impatience with detail but a thorough knowledge of principles; his messages and papers while governor, repressed and condensed to the point of dryness, are not marked by the literary distinction which takes such matters out of the ordinary. His greatest gift, perhaps, was his ability to handle men. He kept no diary and left no reminiscences.
Connections
McEnery had married, on June 27, 1878, Elizabeth Phillips of Monroe, La.