Champion Spalding Chase (March 20, 1820 – November 3, 1898) was an American politician, who served as the first Attorney General of Nebraska, and served seven years as Mayor of Omaha, Nebraska. He also served in the Wisconsin State Senate and was a Union Army officer in the American Civil War. Early life and career Born in Cornish, New Hampshire, the son of Clement Chase (1776–1867) and his second wife, Olive Spalding (1790–1823), of Plainfield, New Hampshire, he was named after his maternal grandfather, Champion Spalding. He grew up in Cornish, on his father's farm, and later attended the Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, New Hampshire. He started teaching in Cornish as an adolescent during the winter and moved later in 1840 to continue his teaching in New York. In New York, he taught at the Academy in Amsterdam, New York, from 1841 to 1842. By 1843 he had moved to Otsego County to be the vice principal of the West Hartwick Seminary. He resided in New York until the end of the 1840s and studied law in Buffalo. In 1848, he was admitted to the bar at Canandaigua and, in 1849, he moved to Racine, Wisconsin. Wisconsin public office In Wisconsin, Chase became involved in politics. He attended the first Republican National Convention in 1856 as part of the delegation from Wisconsin. The convention nominated John C. Frémont as the Republican candidate for the presidency in the 1856 election. The same year, Chase ran for the Wisconsin State Senate and was elected to a two-year term, representing Racine County. During his second year in the Senate, he served as chairman of the judiciary committee and supervised the revision of the statutes of the state. In 1859, he was elected Prosecuting Attorney for the 1st judicial district in Wisconsin. That same year, he was elected President of the Board of Education for the city of Racine. Also in 1859, Chase was appointed Brigadier General of the Wisconsin State Militia, by Governor Alexander Randall. Civil War service In 1862, with the assistance of his cousin, Salmon P. Chase (1808–1873), who was then the United States Treasury Secretary, he was appointed paymaster in the Union Army with the rank of Major. He served four years in the Union Army and during this time he was on special duty in the West and Southwest. He was at the sieges of Knoxville, Mobile, and