Lucien Bonaparte Webster

Lucien Bonaparte Webster (March 17, 1801 – November 4, 1853) was a career United States Army officer from Vermont who served in the Mexican–American War and at Fort Brown in Texas. In 1837 he married Frances Marvin Smith of Vermont and Florida, and they had five children. He achieved the rank of brevet lieutenant colonel before his death in Texas while on active duty.

Frances Smith's younger brother was Edmund Kirby Smith, also a West Point graduate and career officer who was one of seven generals in the Confederate Army and the last to surrender.

Life and career Lucien Bonaparte Webster was born in rural Hartland, Vermont, the son of Laban Webster and his wife Lucy Wright. He was commissioned as a brevet Second Lieutenant of artillery, considered the second best assignment after the Corps of Engineers.

In 1836, Webster was assigned to Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida, as the Seminole people's resistance to removal became more fierce. He had served in seven posts during the previous thirteen years. There he met his future wife, Frances Marvin Smith, the niece of his commanding officer. She was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, and her family had moved to Florida in 1823 when her father Joseph Lee Smith was appointed as a judge of the superior court.

In 1838, Webster participated in the Army's removal of Cherokee Native Americans from North Carolina, who were forced on the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. During ten years of teaching at West Point, he was promoted to captain. Webster served in the US Army during the Mexican-American War. He died of yellow fever on 04 Nov 1853 while stationed at Fort Brown, Cameron County, Texas.