This is the biography of a forgotten and amusing frontier lawyer who played an important role in the settlement of California. William H. Russell known as Colonel Bellows, served as Henry Clay's private secretary in Kentucky. He emigrated to Fulton, Missouri in 1831, and Daniel Webster appointed him U.S. Marshall for the frontier. He organized the largest wagon train to California in 1846 and volunteered for the U.S. Army's conquest of California in the Mexican War. He served as the new territory's first Secretary of State. He was a key witness in the court martial of Lt. Col. John Fremont. In 1860 he was shot campaigning for Abraham Lincoln and during the Civil War became a famously unsuccessful diplomat.