Alexander Boarman

Alexander “Aleck” Boarman (December 10, 1839 – August 30, 1916) was a United States representative from Louisiana and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Previously, he served in the Confederate States Army and as Mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana. His public career spanned the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and included service at the municipal, state, and federal levels.

Boarman was born on December 10, 1839, in Yazoo City, Yazoo County, Mississippi. Orphaned in infancy, he was taken to Shreveport, Caddo Parish, Louisiana, where he was raised by relatives. He attended the common schools of Shreveport and later enrolled at the Kentucky Military Institute in Franklin, Kentucky, receiving a military-oriented education that prepared him for both higher study and later military service. He continued his education at Kentucky University (now Transylvania University) in Lexington, Kentucky, from which he graduated in 1860. In the same year he read law, completing the traditional course of legal study that qualified him to enter the profession.

With the outbreak of the American Civil War, Boarman enlisted in the Confederate States Army. He initially served as a lieutenant in the Caddo Rifles, a local unit that was incorporated into the 1st Louisiana Infantry, which in turn became part of the Army of Northern Virginia. After one year of fighting he was promoted to the rank of captain, a commission he held until the end of the war in 1865. During the conflict he served as acting assistant adjutant-general in the Battle of Winchester, where his conduct drew favorable notice from his commanding officer, who commended Captain Alexander Boarman for courage, gallantry, efficiency, and valuable assistance in the engagement.

Following the war, Boarman returned to Shreveport and entered private law practice there from 1866 to 1868. Concurrently, he became active in municipal affairs. He was elected Mayor of Shreveport and served from May 7, 1866, to August 8, 1867, guiding the city during the early Reconstruction period. After his mayoral term, he continued his involvement in local government as city attorney for Shreveport from 1868 to 1872. He also sought statewide office and was an unsuccessful candidate for election as Secretary of State of Louisiana in 1872, reflecting his growing prominence in Louisiana political and legal circles.

As a member of the Liberal Republican Party representing Louisiana, Boarman contributed to the legislative process during one term in office. He was elected as a Liberal Republican from Louisiana’s 4th congressional district to the United States House of Representatives of the 42nd United States Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of United States Representative-elect James McCleery. He served in Congress from December 3, 1872, to March 3, 1873. Boarman’s service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history, at the height of Reconstruction, when issues of civil rights, federal authority, and the reintegration of the former Confederate states were central to national debate. During his brief tenure, he participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of his constituents in northwestern Louisiana.

After leaving Congress, Boarman resumed private practice in Shreveport from 1873 to 1877. His judicial career at the state level began when he was appointed or elected Judge of the Louisiana District Court for the Tenth Judicial District, a position he held from 1877 to 1881. In this capacity he presided over a broad range of civil and criminal matters during a period marked by the end of Reconstruction and the reassertion of state authority in Louisiana’s legal system.

Boarman’s federal judicial service commenced when President James A. Garfield nominated him on May 18, 1881, to a new seat on the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, authorized by 21 Stat. 507. He was confirmed by the United States Senate and received his commission on the same day, May 18, 1881. As a United States district judge, he oversaw federal trial proceedings in a region that encompassed much of western Louisiana, handling cases involving federal law, admiralty, bankruptcy, and interstate commerce during a period of rapid economic and social change in the post-Reconstruction South. His long tenure on the bench placed him among the more enduring federal judicial figures of his era.

Boarman’s service as a federal judge continued until his death on August 30, 1916. He died while on a visit to Loon Lake, Franklin County, New York. His remains were returned to Louisiana, and he was interred in Oakland Cemetery in Shreveport, the city where he had grown up, practiced law, and first entered public life.