Page:Autobiographies and portraits of the President, cabinet, Supreme court, and Fifty-fifth Congress (IA autobiographiesp02neal).pdf/139

 WILLIAM A. HARRIS

, of Linwood, Leavenworth County, was born in Loudoun County, Va., October 29, 1841, his home being in Luray, Va., where he attended school; graduated at Columbian College, Washington, D. C., in 1859, and at the Virginia Military Institute in 1861; served three years in the Confederate army as assistant adjutant-general of Wilcox's brigade and ordnance officer of D. H. Hill's and Rodes's division, Army of Northern Virginia; removed to Kansas in 1865 and was employed as civil engineer in the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, Kansas division, for three years; in 1868 accepted the agency for the sale of the Delaware Reservation and other lands, in connection with farming and stock raising; since 1876 has been a farmer and breeder of pure-bred shorthorn cattle; was elected to the Fifty-Third Congress, at large, as a Populist, and indorsed by the Democrats; was renominated for the Fifty-Fourth Congress, but was defeated at the election; was elected to the United States Senate as a Populist, and took his seat March 4, 1897. His term of service will expire March 3, 1903.