Franklin Archibald Dick

Franklin Archibald Dick (May 2, 1823 – February 18, 1885) was a St. Louis, Missouri attorney. He was assistant adjutant general to Nathaniel Lyon at Camp Jackson (the first Missouri Civil War incident); Missouri provost marshal general under Major General Samuel Curtis; and law partner with Montgomery Blair at the Blair House in Washington D C after the Civil War.

Dick was born in Philadelphia on May 2, 1823, the only son of Archibald Thomas Dick and Hannah Rogers. Dick entered the University of Pennsylvania at the age of sixteen in 1839 as a law student. He graduated in 1842 and moved to the frontier town of St. Louis, Missouri, where he practiced law from 1844 to 1861. He married Myra Madison Alexander, (January 12, 1832 - December 22, 1919) on November 25, 1851. Myra’s sister, Apolline, was married to Dick’s close friend, Frank Blair, the son of Francis P. Blair Sr., a journalist and politician who had been an advisor to President Andrew Jackson, and who was an organizer of the Republican Party.

Franklin Dick actively supported Frank Blair’s efforts to keep Missouri in the Union by serving on committees, and at his urging later became provost marshal general. President Lincoln used Frank Blair as an unofficial advisor on Missouri affairs during the war. Frank’s brother, Montgomery, was President Abraham Lincoln’s Postmaster General.

Dick kept private journals during the Civil War, recording events he observed in St. Louis. He describes a meeting on January 10, 1861 in his law office in which the St. Louis Committee of Safety monitored actions by the Southern sympathizers, and many private meetings with Nathaniel Lyon. In St. Louis, after Camp Jackson was filled with secret rebels anxious for control of the St. Louis Arsenal, Dick told Frank Blair, borrowing their blind mother-in-law’s dress, veil and hat for Nathaniel Lyon to use for a disguise. Lyon was driven in Mira Alexander’s carriage into Camp Jackson to observe General Frost and his troops, along with other visitors. That night Lyon, Blair, and other Unionists met in Dick’s law office and decided to capture Camp Jackson. At Lyon’s urging, Franklin Dick served as his assistant adjutant general during the Camp Jackson affair on May 10, 1861. He writes of riding his horse in the midst of the fracas in front of the troops firing, and ordering them to stop in the name of Captain Lyon, when Lyon was on the ground He also describes Lyon’s pity and emotion as “almost womanly” on seeing the dead and wounded after the incident, and how they had to gallop around the city back to the arsenal to avoid an ambush.

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