Born in Missouri about 1841, Marion Beeler was a resident of Troy, Doniphan County, Kansas. He was mustered in as a first lieutenant in Company B, 13th Kansas Infantry in September 1862. Beeler was promoted to captain in May 1863. He married Ora Canfield in June 1863.

The 13th Kansas Infantry fought in the 1862 battles of Newtonia and Prairie Grove, and otherwise spent time on scout and garrison duties in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and the Indian Territory.

On the night of August 9, 1864, Captain Beeler and 38 men of his company and 20 cavalrymen left Van Buren, Arkansas, to “chase bushwhackers” on Frog Bayou, about 25 miles away. Beeler and his men clashed with the Confederates four times, and in the last engagement, on August 11, “while engaged in an almost hand-to-hand conflict with the noted Rebel Captain Wright and twenty of his men,” Beeler was shot in the chest. He died two days later in Van Buren. His son Frank was born in October 1864.

Beeler is buried in the Fort Smith National Cemetery.

Carte-de-Visite by W.M. Phelps, Little Rock.

Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 31931