Lawrence Berry Washington (1811–1856) was an American lawyer, military officer, and author whose life spanned several of the most turbulent chapters of nineteenth-century American history. Born into the prominent Washington family at the Cedar Lawn plantation near Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia), he was the eldest of thirteen children. He initially pursued a career in law before serving as a second lieutenant in the Virginia Volunteers during the Mexican–American War, during which he reportedly carried the sword of his great-granduncle, George Washington.\n\nFollowing his military service, Washington joined the migration westward, traveling to California in 1849 as a "Forty-niner" during the height of the California Gold Rush. His experiences during this period inspired his literary contribution, the novel A Tale to be Told Some Fifty Years Hence.\n\nIn the 1850s, Washington relocated to Missouri, where he became embroiled in the violent "Bleeding Kansas" border conflicts over the expansion of slavery. Fighting as a Border Ruffian under Captain Henry Clay Pate, he was wounded during the Battle of Black Jack in June 1856. His life came to a sudden end in September of that year when he drowned after falling overboard from a steamboat on the Missouri River, an event his descendants claimed was a murder perpetrated by anti-slavery Jayhawkers.
