James Lewis

James Lewis (1832 – July 11, 1914) was an African-American soldier and politician in Louisiana. Born into slavery and of mixed race, during the American Civil War he left a position as steward on a Confederate steamboat to move to New Orleans, which had been taken over by Union troops. There he helped organize the First Louisiana Volunteer Native Guards, becoming captain of Company K and serving until 1864. After the war he became politically active in the Republican Party during the Reconstruction era, where he was an ally of several other leading men of color in the city and state. This was an especially violent time in Louisiana and New Orleans politics, but Lewis survived for decades as a political leader. He initially worked for the Freedmen's Bureau, where he was an agent to raise money and establish schools for freed slaves. He was appointed as a federal customs inspector for a short period, the first man of African descent to gain a federal civil position in the state. He was recalled for political reasons. Lewis later entered the New Orleans Metropolitan Police force, but left in 1872 after more political machinations. He emerged from the immediate postwar period as a leader in the New Orleans Republican Party. For much of the 1870s, 1880s, 1890s, and 1900s, he held state and federal-level Republican-appointee government positions, usually in the United States Treasury Department. He also served for years under Republican administrations as the surveyor-general of Louisiana and Mississippi. He was also a Freemason and a leader in the Grand Army of the Republic, a civil war veterans organization.