James Shields (1810–1879)

James Shields holds the distinction of being the only person to be elected to the US Senate from three different states. The peripatetic Irish Democrat represented Illinois, Minnesota, and Missouri in the Senate. Born in Altimore, County Tyrone, Ireland, on May 10, 1810, Shields received a classical education before immigrating to the United States in 1826. He settled in Kaskaskia, Illinois, where he took up the study of law. Following his admission to the bar in 1832, he established a legal practice in Kaskaskia.

In 1836 Shields won a seat in the Illinois House of Representatives, and in 1839 he became the state auditor. He served as a judge on the Illinois Supreme Court from 1843 to 1845 prior to accepting an appointment as commissioner of the general land office.

Shields secured a commission as a brigadier general during the Mexican War and was wounded during the Battle of Cerro Gordo. President James K. Polk named him governor of the Oregon Territory in 1849, but he resigned that post upon learning that he had been elected to represent Illinois in the US Senate.

Following the completion of his senatorial term in 1855, Shields moved to the Minnesota Territory. When Minnesota became a state three years later, he returned to the Senate after being elected to fill a two-year term. After failing to win reelection, he headed for California, where he met his future wife, Mary Ann Carr. They married in 1861 and later had three children.

After the outbreak of the Civil War, Shields was appointed a brigadier general in the Union army and placed in command of a division. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln recommended the former senator for promotion to the rank of major general, but Congress failed to confirm his advancement. Shields resigned from the army in disgust, returned to California, and served as the railroad commissioner until l866.

In 1866 he moved to Missouri and purchased a small farm near Carrollton, where he established a law practice. He won a seat in the Missouri House of Representatives in 1874. In 1877 he became the railroad commissioner. The Missouri General Assembly chose Shields to serve in the US Senate in January 1879 following the death of Lewis Vital Bogy, but he declined reelection in March of that year. His abbreviated term as Missouri’s US senator secured for him the distinction of being the only person to represent three different states in the upper house.

On June 1, 1879, Shields died in Ottumwa, Iowa, while on a lecture tour. His body was returned to Carrollton for burial in St. Mary’s Cemetery. Statues of Shields were placed in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol and on the courthouse square in Carrollton.

This article was first published in Lawrence O. Christensen, William E. Foley, Gary R. Kremer, and Kenneth H. Winn, eds., Dictionary of Missouri Biography (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999), and appears here by permission of the author and original publisher.