Augustus Caesar Dodge was a Democratic delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa Territory, a U.S. minister to Spain, and one of the first set of United States senators to represent Iowa after it was admitted to the Union as a state. His father, Henry Dodge, served as a U.S. senator from Wisconsin; the two were the first and so far the only father-son pair to serve concurrently in the Senate, which they did from 1848 to 1855.

The Territory of Iowa was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 4, 1838, until December 28, 1846, when the southeastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the state of Iowa. The remainder of the territory would have no organized territorial government until the Minnesota Territory was organized on March 3, 1849.