Samuel B. Dooley, born in 1836 in Boone County, Indiana, was a Civil War veteran and a respected resident of Beatrice, Nebraska. He enlisted in the 14th Illinois Volunteer Infantry in 1861 and served under General Grant and General Sherman, participating in major campaigns like Shiloh and the March to the Sea. Captured in 1864, he endured six months in Andersonville prison. After the war, Dooley settled in Beatrice in 1882 and became active in the mercantile business. A dedicated member of the G.A.R., he also served as commander of Rawlins Post No. 35 and was active in local civic and religious life.
Samuel B. Dooley, one of the popular and enterprising residents of Beatrice, Nebraska, is a veteran of the Civil War and a member of the G.A.R. Post No. 35 of Beatrice. He enlisted in Company D, Fourteenth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, in May 1861, for three years. His regiment was one of the ten regiments organized for the state of Illinois under what was known as the Ten Regiment Bill. However, when the governor’s call came for men, these ten regiments were placed at the disposal of the United States government. Colonel J. M. Palmer commanded the regiment in which Mr. Dooley enlisted, and the company was commanded by Captain T. J. Bryant. This regiment participated with General Fremont and General Hunter and later was transferred to the command of General Grant when he was at Shiloh. They also participated in the siege of Vicksburg and then were with the Seventeenth Army Corps under General Sherman in his famous march to the sea. Mr. Dooley was taken prisoner on October 4th and was confined at Andersonville for six months. When he was first confined, he weighed one hundred and sixty pounds, but when released, he was a mere skeleton of ninety pounds. ((Samuel Dooley is listed in the Andersonville records as S.B. Dooly)) No words can do justice to the gallant service done by the veterans of one of the most terrific struggles the world has ever known. Remnants of their arduous fighting and long marches still remain, and make their sacrifice all the greater.
Samuel B. Dooley was born in Boone County, Indiana, on November 6, 1836. He is a son of Robert Dooley, a native of Kentucky, and a grandson of Samuel Dooley, also born in Kentucky, who served in the War of 1812. Robert married Julia A. Shelburne, and eleven children were reared from their union, three of whom were soldiers in the Civil War: John K., who resides in Nuckolls County, Nebraska; James R., who served in an Illinois regiment and died in Andersonville prison; and Samuel B. Dooley. The father died at the age of fifty-two years, and the mother died when she was forty-six years of age.
Samuel B. Dooley resided in Indiana until he was eighteen years of age, during which time he learned the carpenter’s trade and later the brickmaker’s trade. He then engaged in a mercantile line and moved to Illinois. After several changes, he settled in Kansas in 1857 and from there returned to Illinois. In 1882, he located in Beatrice, Nebraska, where he has since resided and is now engaged in the mercantile business. He was married on May 25, 1865, at Coldwater, Michigan, to Elizabeth Wilkins, whom he had met in Kansas. She was born in Indiana and was a daughter of Dr. Wilkins, a physician and minister of the Christian church. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Dooley were: Effie, who married Mr. Almon Stevenson of Beatrice, Nebraska, and they have one child, Bush; Minnie Alta, who died at the age of eleven years; and two boys who died in infancy.
In politics, Mr. Dooley is a staunch Republican and served in Illinois as justice of the peace and mayor of Chapin, Illinois. He has always taken an active part in the G.A.R. post, in which he is very popular, and he serves faithfully as elder in the Christian church, of which his wife is also a member. He was elected commander of Rawlins Post, No. 35, G.A.R., in January 1904.
Source: Lewis Publishing Company, A Biographical and Genealogical History of Southeastern Nebraska, 2 volumes, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904.