Biography

Don Piatt was born in Ohio and trained for the law in Cincinnati, Ohio. Piatt was well-connected with other Ohio politicians, including Edwin McMasters Stanton and Salmon P. Chase. He was appointed Secretary of the Legation in Paris by President Franklin Pierce. During the American Civil War, he served as chief of staff to Brigadier General Robert Schenck. He also served as judge advocate for the War Department in the court of inquiry over General Don Carlos Buell's behavior in Kentucky. Piatt allegedly enraged President Lincoln when he actively recruited enslaved men in Maryland to fight for the Union in 1863, despite the fact that Maryland remained a slave state. Piatt resigned his commission in 1864 and temporarily retired to his home in Ohio. Returning to Washington, Piatt continued to participate in political and diplomatic affairs through his newspaper, The Capital. He attracted considerable disfavor by the Grant Administration for his public condemnation of the President's excessive drinking. Piatt was also critical of the excesses of the Gilded Age, which he aired in his newspaper. Samuel Swasey Seward Jr. references him in a letter to his uncle, then acting Secretary of State, William H. Seward, dated March 19, 1863, in his role in the Buell Commission.