Samuel Adams Drake was raised in Boston. In 1858 he went to Kansas to work as the telegraphic agent of the New York Associated Press. He became a journalist for the St. Louis Republican and the Louisville Journal, and for a while edited the Leavenworth Times. In 1861 he joined the state militia and served throughout the American Civil War, becoming brigadier general of militia in 1863. In 1864, he was colonel of the 17th Kansas Volunteers, commanding the post of Paola, Kansas, during Price's invasion of Missouri in that year. He returned to Boston in 1871 and resumed literary work.