Gen. Robert B. Mitchell was a soldier of the Mexican war from Ohio, a leading figure of Kansas territorial days, one of the ablest officers of the Oivil war representing the Union army of the state, and finally governor of the Territory of New Mexico. He was born in Richland County, Ohio, April 4, 1823; educated at Washington College in Pennsylvania, after which he studied law; was admitted to the bar, and practiced at Mansfield, Ohio, from 1844 to 1846. He then entered the army as a first lientenant in an Ohio regiment and served through the Mexican war, resuming his law practice in 1847_ In 1856 he moved to Kansas, where he became an active participant in political affairs as a free-state advocate, and in 1857 was elected to the legislature. From 1858 to 1861 he held the office of territorial treasurer. At the outbreak of the Civil war he entered the army as colonel of the Second Kansas, and was severely wounded at the battle of Wilson’s Creek. Subsequently he raised a regiment of cavalry and was commissioned brigadier general of volunteers. At the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, October 8, 1862, he commanded a division of the Third Army Corps, and at Chickamauga was in command of the cavalry corps of the Army of the Cumberland. At the close of the war he was appointed governor of New Mexico and held that office until 1867, when he moved to Washington, District of Columbia, where his death occurred on January 26, 1882.
