James W. (James William) Steele

Born in Illinois in 1840 and raised partly in Kansas, he returned east to finish school in Indiana. When the Civil War began, he enlisted with the 38th Indiana Infantry and, after being wounded and discharged, volunteered again as a second lieutenant with the 43rd U.S. Colored Troops, where he was wounded a second time.

After the war, he studied law in Topeka, married Augusta Butterfield in 1866, and also spent time in New Mexico and Arizona as a captain in the U.S. Cavalry. He helped establish the Kansas Magazine and became its editor, later serving as U.S. consul at Matanzas, Cuba, from 1874 to 1877.

He eventually moved to Chicago, where he continued magazine work and wrote widely on western travel, frontier life, and popular science. Books associated with him include Frontier Army Sketches, Old Californian Days, Colorado Outings, The Klondike, and Steam, Steel and Electricity; in some writings he also used the name Deane Monahan.