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Ezekiel S. Sampson

Union Army officer (1831-1892)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ1347318 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ezekiel Silas Sampson (December 6, 1831 – October 7, 1892) was a lawyer, prosecutor, Civil War officer, judge, and two-term Republican Congressman from Iowa's 6th congressional district.

Early life

Born in Huron County, Ohio, Sampson moved to Keokuk County, Iowa, in 1843 where he attended public schools as a child. He later attended Howe’s Academy and Knox College, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1856, commencing practice in Sigourney, Iowa. He was prosecuting attorney of Keokuk County from 1856 to 1858.

Career

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Sampson enlisted in the Union Army as a captain in the 5th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment in 1861 and was later promoted to lieutenant colonel of the same regiment, serving as so until he was mustered out of service in 1864.

After the war, he resumed practicing law in Sigourney. He was a member of the Iowa Senate in 1866 and was judge of the sixth district of Iowa from 1867 to 1875.

In 1874, Sampson was elected a Republican to represent Iowa's 6th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. Near the end of his service in the 44th United States Congress, he was re-elected in 1876 to a second term, and served in the 45th United States Congress. When running for a third term in 1878, he was defeated in the general election by Greenback Party candidate (and future presidential candidate) James B. Weaver.

Editorial summary

“Ezekiel S. Sampson” enters the record as union Army officer (1831-1892). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ezekiel, Sampson and Union can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1831, 1892, 1843, 1856—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1831-12-06. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Ezekiel, Sampson and Union.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Ezekiel S. Sampson” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ezekiel, Sampson and Union provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1347318. VIAF identifies the subject as 12142278. The Library of Congress control number is no2009007500. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1831, 1892, 1843 and 1856.

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The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ezekiel S. Sampson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.