Robert C. Schenck - Postbellum Activities

Postbellum Activities

He had been elected by a large majority over Copperhead Democrat Clement Vallandigham, from the Third Congressional District (Dayton) of Ohio. He was at once made House Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. It was said that in military matters he was the firm friend of the volunteer, as against what he thought the encroachments and assumptions of the regulars; the remorseless enemy of deserters; a vigorous advocate of the draft, and the author of the disfranchisement of those who ran away from it; the champion of the private soldiers and subordinate officers. He was re-elected to the Thirty-Eighth, Thirty-Ninth, Fortieth and Forty-First Congresses, and from his position was a leader of the House, including service as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

Failing re-election by just fifty-three votes in 1870, Schenck was appointed by President Ulysses Grant as Minister to the United Kingdom, and he sailed for England in July 1871. As a member on the Alabama Claims Commission, he took part in settling the claims arising from the exploits of Raphael Semmes and his Confederate raider.

At a royal party in Somerset, Ambassador Schenck was attending a reception hosted by Queen Victoria, when he was persuaded to write down his rules for poker by a duchess. She privately printed the rules for her court. Although several American books had previously discussed the game, this was the first book to deal solely with draw poker published on either side of the Atlantic. The game quickly became popular in England, where it was universally known as "Schenck's poker."

In October 1871, Schenk was bribed for the use of his name in the sale of stock in England for the Emma Silver Mine, near Alta, Utah, and became a director of the mining company. Seeing the American minister's name connected with it, British people invested heavily. The Emma mine paid large dividends for a brief time while company insiders sold their shares, but then share prices crashed when it was learned that the mine was exhausted. Schenck was blamed and was ordered home for investigation. He resigned his post in the spring of 1875. A congressional investigation in March 1876 concluded that he was not guilty of wrongdoing but that he had shown very bad judgment in lending his name and office to promote any such scheme.

Upon his return from England later that year, he resumed his law practice in Washington, D.C. He also published a book on draw poker, Draw. Rules for Playing Poker (Brooklyn: Privately printed, 1880. 16mo, 17 pages). General Schenck was an accomplished scholar, thoroughly informed on international and constitutional law, well versed in political history, and familiar with the whole range of modern literature, English, French and Spanish.

Robert Cumming Schenck died in Washington, D.C., on March 23, 1890, aged 80, and was interred in Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio.