Samuel McDowell Tate

Colonel Samuel McDowell Tate, veteran of the Civil War, helped organize a company from his native Burke County and fought gallantly as part of that famous defense at Manassas Junction where General Thomas Jackson became known simply as "Stonewall." Tate fought at Richmond, at Second Manassas, at Sharpsburg, at Gettysburg, and at Rappahannock. He was wounded just as the war was ending.

After the war he was elected president of the bankrupt Western North Carolina Railroad. Tate was forced out of office by the Reconstruction Acts, because of his war record, by Governor W. W. Holden. He was elected to the legislature in 1874 and served subsequent terms in the House in 1881, 1883 and 1885. In 1886, he was appointed federal examiner of National Banks for the district stretching from West Virginia to Florida.

Upon the death of Donald Bain, Governor Thomas M. Holt appointed Colonel Tate, his longtime friend, as State Treasurer. The record shows he served briefly but ably. He was nominated by the Democratic Party to succeed himself in 1894; however, the fusion of Populists and Republicans into a common ticket defeated the Democrats for many statewide offices that year in what became known as the Fusion campaign. Colonel Tate retired to his home in Burke County where he died two years later. 1

1 Samuel Ashe, Stephen B. Weeks, Charles L. Van Noppen, eds., Biographical History of North Carolina from Colonial Times to the Present, Vol. II (Greensboro: Charles L. Van Noppen Publisher, 1905-1917), 430-439.

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