Soldier, editor, diplomat, Rufus King led an active and varied life. Born in New York City in 1814, King attended West Point and received his commission as Second Lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers in 1833. In 1836 King resigned his commission and returned to New York to become a journalist and civil engineer. Nine years later he moved to Milwaukee where he assumed the editorship of the Milwaukee Sentinel, a position he held until 1861. As editor he made the Sentinel a power in Wisconsin Whig, and later Republican, politics. Lincoln appointed King minister to the Papal States in 1861, but with the outbreak of the Civil War King temporarily left the diplomatic service to rejoin the army. As a brigadier general of U. S. Volunteers, he commanded the “Iron Brigade” until ill health forced him to resign in 1863. Resuming his diplomatic mission to the Papal States that same year King served in Rome until 1867 when he returned to New York where he remained until his death in 1876.
Rufus King's son, Charles King (1844-1933), also followed a military career. He graduated from West Point in 1866 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the First Artillery. Four years later as a first lieutenant, King transferred to the Fifth Cavalry where he served as regimental adjutant from 1876 to 1878. In 1879 he received his captaincy. Wounded in battle in 1879, King retired from his command but later, 1882-1889, became inspector and instructor for the Wisconsin National Guard. In 1895 he was promoted to adjutant general. During the Spanish-American War King served in the Philippine Islands as a brigadier general of volunteers under General Henry W. Lawton from 1898 to 1899. Upon his return home King was appointed superintendent of the Michigan Military Academy.
Throughout his career, Charles King enjoyed popularity as a novelist, writing romantic adventure stories about the army and life in the West. In all he wrote seventy novels, including Famous and Descriptive Battles, Between the Lines, Marion's Faith (1885), Captain Blake (1892), and The Iron Brigade (1902).
Further information on Charles King can be found in American Authors, 1600-1900 by S. Kunitz and H. Haycraft. Articles on both Charles and his father are listed in Poole's Index to Periodical Literature.
