in 1849; attended the common schools and the Upper Iowa University at Fayette; enlisted in the Union Army September 15, 1861, as a private in Company C, Twelfth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry; was elected and commissioned first lieutenant of that company and served with it until discharged, owing to the loss of a leg, February 26, 1863; commissioner of the board of enrollment of the third district of Iowa from May 1863 to June 1864; entered the Army as colonel of the Forty-sixth Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, and served until the close of the war;

studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1865 and commenced practice in Dubuque, Iowa; collector of internal revenue for the third district of Iowa from November 1865 to June 1869 when he resigned; assistant United States district attorney for the northern district of Iowa 1869-1871; elected as a Republican to the Forty-eighth and to the nine succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1883-March 3, 1903); chairman, Committee on Militia (Fifty-first Congress), Committee on the Judiciary (Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Congresses), Committee on Rules (Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Congresses); Speaker of the House of Representatives (Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Congresses); declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1902; died in Dubuque, Iowa, February 25, 1906; interment in Linwood Cemetery.