Samuel G. Arnold


Samuel Greene Arnold, Jr. was a United States Senator from Rhode Island born in Providence. He received his early education under private tutors, then graduated from Brown University in 1841 and the law department of Harvard University in 1845, gaining admission to the bar that year. He was a lawyer and historian and was a trustee of Brown University from 1848-80.

Career

Arnold was elected Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island in 1852 and served as acting governor. In 1859, he was elected an Associate Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he wrote the History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1859. He was a member of the peace commission held at Washington, D.C. in 1861 in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war.
In March 1861, Arnold was again elected lieutenant governor after being nominated by the Constitutional Union and Democratic Conventions. He was again elected lieutenant governor in 1862.
Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War, Arnold was appointed as a military aide, with rank of colonel, to Governor William Sprague and raised the 1st Rhode Island Battery of light artillery, which went to Washington D.C. and was mustered into the Union Army for three months.
He was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of James F. Simmons, and served from December 1, 1862, to March 3, 1863. After his time in the Senate, he returned to historical research and was president of the Rhode Island Historical Society from 1868 to 1880. He died in Providence on February 13, 1880; interment was in Swan Point Cemetery.
Samuel Greene Arnold was the author of the two-volume History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations published in 1859-60.

Family

He married his cousin Louisa Gindrat Arnold, the daughter of his father's uncle Richard J. Arnold. He wrote, "I have brought up my cousin for years to make her my wife, for I am so fastidious & particular on that matter that I knew I never should find a lady to suit me in all respects unless I educated her for the purpose. This is an original idea to be sure."
Samuel Arnold's grandnephew Theodore Francis Green was also a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island.