Lewis Dent
American politician

Lewis T. Dent (also known as Louis Dent, March 3, 1823 – March 22, 1874) was an American
explorer, judge, and politician. He was the brother-in-law of Ulysses S. Grant.
Dent was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1823, the son of Frederick Dent and Ellen Wrenshall. He was one of four older brothers of Julia Dent Grant, the future First Lady. Dent was considered to be well-educated, having attended the best schools in St. Louis and studying law. In 1846, Dent served as a civilian clerk to paymaster Major James H. Cloud who accompanied the Mormon Battalion to California during the Mexican-American War. Lewis and his brother John's names were found etched at Signature Rock in Oklahoma.
Dent later married a daughter of Judge Baine.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lewis Dent” 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.