Ken Bridges/Contributing writer
Roger Mills was an early Texas lawyer and legislator. He fought in the Civil War and served for nearly three decades in Congress and the U. S. Senate from the 1870s through the 1890s. Though respected for his dedication and work ethic, his political stands damaged his political career.
Roger Quarles Mills was born in Todd County, Kentucky, just on the Tennessee state line, in 1832. Not long after statehood and the end of the Mexican War, the family moved to Texas in 1849. Mills was interested in law, but as there were no law schools in Texas at the time, he apprenticed himself to an attorney and studied it himself. In 1852, barely 20 years old, he was admitted to the bar, becoming the youngest attorney in the state at the time.
Mills settled in Corsicana, built a respected practice, and got involved in local politics. In 1859, he was elected to the state legislature. Texas seceded from the Union in February 1861 as his term ended. He quickly enlisted in the Confederate Army, serving as a private. He soon saw action at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek in August 1861 in Missouri as Confederate forces tried unsuccessfully to pull that state out of the Union. In October, the 10th Texas Infantry Regiment was organized, and Mills was promoted to colonel as he helped organize the new regiment, also called “Wilson’s Guards.”
The first major action that the 10th Texas saw was at the Battle of Arkansas Post on the Mississippi River in January 1863. Confederate forces were overwhelmed, and most of the 10th Texas was captured and held prisoner until an exchange a few months later. The 10th was combined with the 6th Texas Infantry and the 15th Texas Cavalry, with Gen. James Deshler in command. At the battle of Chickamauga in October, Deshler was killed, and Mills assumed command.
For the rest of the war, Mills led the 10th Texas as Confederate defenses in eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia faltered. By 1865, Mills led his troops into North Carolina with what remained of the Confederate Army. His forces surrendered near Durham, North Carolina, in late April, more than two weeks after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.
After the war, he returned to Corsicana. In 1872, he was elected as a Democrat to Congress. In Congress, he became known for his work ethic. He rose to become chairman of the influential Ways and Means Committee, which crafted the federal budget, and later the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. As the economy depended on exports of cattle, cotton, and grains, foreign trade was especially important; but there were still many defenders of high protectionist tariffs. Mills attempted to push through a bill that reduced the overseas tariff but instead only got a watered-down tariff reduction bill, the Mills Bill of 1888, which passed the Democratic House of Representatives easily but was shot down by the Republican Senate.
One of his most notable political battles came in 1891 after the Democrats reclaimed the U. S. House of Representatives in the mid-term elections. Mills ran for Speaker of the House. He quickly gathered commitments from 120 fellow Democrats. However, backroom deals peeled away several supporters; and the election went on ballot after ballot. As with his stubborn nature he had shown through much of his career, he refused to back down and make compromises. On the thirtieth ballot, he lost to Rep. Charles Crisp of Georgia by a margin of 119 to 105.
In spite of the loss, in 1891, the Oklahoma Territory named the new Roger Mills County, which borders the Texas Panhandle, after him. In March 1892, the state legislature elected Mills to the U. S. Senate, succeeding Sen. Horace Chilton. Increasingly, silver coinage was a popular issue among farmers across the South and Midwest as farmers were desperate to reverse the tide of collapsing crop prices. They saw monetary inflation as the solution to ending their debt problems. However, eastern bankers opposed silver coinage as it cut into their profits from loans, and eastern factory workers opposed it as it ate into their wages. Loyal to President Grover Cleveland, Mills backed a partial repeal of the 1890 Sherman Silver Purchase Act which sought to add more inflationary silver into the nation’s money supply.
Upset at the action, the Texas legislature declined to re-elect him in 1898. When his term ended in March 1899, Mills returned to Texas and resumed his law practice. He died in Corsicana in September 1911 at age 79.