B: Babcock through Burchard

See below for annotated biographies of anti-slavery Whigs. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.

BABCOCK, James Francis, journalist, born in Connecticut in 1809; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 18 June, 1874. He controlled the nominations of the Whig Party for many years, and, though hostile to the Free-Soil Party at its inception, he finally gave it a hearty welcome in 1854.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 125:

BABCOCK, James Francis, journalist, born in Connecticut in 1809; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 18 June, 1874. He began newspaper work at an early age, and in 1830 became editor of the New Haven " Palladium," which soon began to issue a daily edition and which he conducted for thirty-one years. He controlled the nominations of the Whig Party for many years, and, though hostile to the Free-Soil Party at its inception, he finally gave it a hearty welcome in 1854. He retained his prestige with the Republican Party for some years, took an active part in furthering the national cause during the war, and, shortly after his resignation as editor of the " Palladium," was appointed, by President Lincoln, collector of the port of New Haven. He retained that office under President Johnson, whose policy he supported; and, after the rupture between the president and the Republicans, Mr. Babcock acted with the Democratic Party, and, after an angry and excited contest, was nominated by them for Congress, but was defeated by the Republican nominee. He was elected by the Democrats to the state legislature in 1873. The legislature of 1874 elected him judge of the Police Court of New Haven. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 125.



BAKER, Edward Dickenson, soldier, born in London, England, 24 February, 1811; killed at the battle of Ball's Bluff, 21 October, 1861. Baker entered the political field as a Whig. He was elected a member of the legislature in 1837, of the state senate in 1840, and representative in Congress in 1844.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

BAKER, Edward Dickenson, soldier, born in London, England, 24 February, 1811; killed at the battle of Ball's Bluff, 21 October, 1861. He came to the United States at the age of five with his father, who died in Philadelphia while Edward was yet a youth. The boy supported himself and his younger brother by working as a weaver, and occupied his leisure hours in study. Impelled to seek his fortune in the far west, he moved with his brother to Springfield, Illinois, where he studied and soon began the practice of law. His genius for oratory rapidly gained him distinction and popularity, and, entering the political field as a Whig. He was elected a member of the legislature in 1837, of the state senate in 1840, and representative in Congress in 1844. When the Mexican War began he raised a regiment in Illinois and marched to the Rio Grande. Taking a furlough to speak and vote in favor of the war in the U.S. House of Representatives, he returned and overtook his regiment on the march from Vera Cruz. He fought with distinction in every action on the route to Mexico, and after the wounding of General Shields at Cerro Gordo commanded the brigade and led it during the rest of the war. On his return to Galena, Illinois, he was again elected to Congress; but, becoming interested in the Panama Railroad, he declined a renomination in 1850. In 1851 he settled in San Francisco, where he took rank as the leader of the California Bar and the most eloquent orator in the state. The death of Senator Broderick, who fell in a duel in 1859, was the occasion of a fiery oration in the public square of San Francisco. He received a Republican nomination to Congress, but failed of election. Moving to Oregon, he was elected to the U. S. Senate in 1860 by a coalition of Republicans and Douglas Democrats. The firing upon Fort Sumter prompted him to deliver a passionate address in Union Square, New York, in which he pledged his life and his declining strength to the service of the union. He raised the California regiment in New York and Philadelphia, but declined a commission as general of brigade. In the disastrous assault at Ball's Bluff he commanded a brigade, and, exposing himself to the hottest fire, fell mortally wounded while leading a charge.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1887, Vol. I, p. 144.



BALDWIN, Roger Sherman, 1793-1863, New Haven, Connecticut, lawyer, jurist, statesman, U.S. Senator. Lead counsel, with John Quincy Adams, for the slaves of the Amistad ship. Strong supporter of the Lincoln and the abolition movement in the United States.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 542-543)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 1, pp. 542-543:

BALDWIN, ROGER SHERMAN (January 4, 1793-February 19, 1863), lawyer, senator, governor of Connecticut, was the son of Simeon Baldwin [q.v.] and Rebecca Sherman, daughter of Roger Sherman [q.v.]. He prepared for college first with a teacher in New Canaan, and later at the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, under his cousin, Henry Sherman. Even as a boy he was scholarly and had read Virgil to a considerable extent before he was ten. He entered Yale when fourteen years of age and was graduated in 1811. He studied law in New Haven for a time, probably in his father's office, and then entered the Litchfield Law School. When he finished his course Judge Gould wrote to Judge Simeon Baldwin, "I restore your son, somewhat improved, as I hope and believe. At any rate, no student from our office ever passed a better examination." He was admitted to the bar of Connecticut in 1814 and began practise by himself in New Haven. Politically he rose step by step, being successively member of the common council of New Haven, alderman of New Haven, member of the Connecticut Senate, member of the Connecticut General Assembly, and in 1844 and 1845 governor of Connecticut. In 1847 he was appointed by Governor Bissell to fill the vacancy in the United States Senate caused by the death of Jabez W. Huntington. The following year he was elected by the General Assembly of Connecticut to complete Senator Huntington's unexpired term, which ended in 1851. In 1860 he was one of the electors of the president for the state at large when Lincoln was elected.

In spite of holding high political office, Baldwin's greatest fame was as a lawyer. His name was in every volume of the Connecticut Reports for forty-seven years. He was active in the movement for the abolition of slavery, making speeches on the subject at various times. One of his first cases was a writ of habeas corpus for the release of a negro seized as a fugitive slave, who had escaped from the service of Henry Clay. Perhaps his most noted case was that of the captives of the Amistad. Some negroes captured in Africa were sold to Cubans who started to take them by vessel to Guanaja. They were badly treated and on the second night killed the captain and the cook and attempted to force the Cubans to take them back to Africa. The Cubans managed to bring the boat to the north shore of Long Island, where a government vessel took possession. The negroes were arrested on a charge of murder and piracy. The government vessel libeled the Amistad, her cargo and slaves to recover salvage. The Cubans demanded the return of the slaves. A group of persons interested in abolition took up the defense of the slaves. The case went to the United States Supreme Court. Seth P. Staples, Theodore Sedgwick, and John Quincy Adams were associated with Roger Sherman Baldwin for the defense, which was successful. The decision (United States vs. Libellants of the Amistad, 1841, 15 Peters 518) gave the Africans absolute freedom.

Baldwin was a Whig and helped to organize the Republican party, to which he was loyal but only in so far as he believed in its principles. When he was in the United States Senate he desired reelection. In the General Assembly was a bare Whig majority, but two or three declined to vote for him because they believed his opinions did not exactly accord with certain party principles as they understood them. A written statement from him would have removed the opposition, but this he refused to give, because he did not wish to be in the position of an office-seeker and believed that members of the Senate should not be bound by pledges of any sort. He was not reelected. He was eminent in the Senate at a time when Webster, Clay, Benton, Calhoun, and Seward were members. One of his best speeches was on the compromise measures of 1850, especially the Fugitive Slave Law. Another spirited speech was a reply to the Senator from Virginia who compared the Revolutionary history of Connecticut and Virginia in an offensive manner. His last public service was as a delegate from Connecticut to the National Peace Conference --at Washington in 1861. He was the state's representative on the Resolutions Committee, which was the most important of the committees. In his later life he resumed practise and had important and lucrative cases. He was frequently in the Federal courts and was often asked for written opinions on difficult questions. He has been considered, by many, the ablest lawyer that Connecticut ever produced. Tall and erect, at sixty-nine he still walked with a firm step. Until the last few years of his life he always wore a full-dress suit of black with the occasional substitution of a blue coat with gilt buttons and buff waistcoat. He was married in 1820 to Emily Perkins, by whom he had six sons and three daughters.

[The most complete accounts of Baldwin's life are found in the article by his son, Simeon Eben Baldwin [q.v.], in W. L. Lewis, Great American Lawyers (1908), III,,193, and in W. S. Dutton, An Address at the Funeral of Hon. Roger Sherman Baldwin (1863). Other sketches of his life are in F. B. Dexter, Yale Biographies and Annals, 1805-15, series 6 (1912), p.369; New Haven Journal-Courier, February 21, 1863; Dwight Loomis and J. G. Calhoun, Judicial and Civil History of Connecticut (1875), p. 252; N. C. Osborn, I-fist. of Connecticut in Monographic Form (1925), III, 230. For other information see Catalog of the Officers and Graduates of Yale 1701-1924; New Haven Colony Historical Society Papers, IV; New York Genealogy and Biography Rec., XLII, 43; B. W. Dwight, History of the Descendants of John Dwight of Dedham, Massachusetts (1874), II, uo8; F. B. Perkins, Perkins Family of Connecticut (1860), pp. 3, 40, 79, 80; Chas. C. Baldwin, Baldwin from 1500 to 1881 (1881), I, 278, 285; Wm. Prescott, Prescott Memorial (1870), pp. 121-23, 172-74; John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, ed. by Chas. Francis Adams (1876), X, 287,358,360, 395, 401,429, 430.

J M.E.M.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, pp. 149-150;

BALDWIN, Roger Sherman, jurist, born in New Haven, Connecticut, 4 January, 1793; died there, 19 February, 1863. He affords an admirable instance of all that is best in the intellectual and moral life of New England. By descent and education he was of genuine Puritan stock. His father, Simeon Baldwin, was descended from one of the original New Haven colonists, and his mother was the daughter of Roger Sherman, a signer of the declaration of independence, both families being from the earliest times identified with the cause of civil and religious liberty. Roger Sherman Baldwin entered Yale at the age of fourteen, and was graduated with high honors in 1811. Beginning his legal studies in his father's office, he finished them in the then famous law school of Judges Reeve and Gould, at Litchfield, Connecticut. By the time that he was ready for admission to the bar, in 1814, he had developed a mastery of the principles of law that was considered very remarkable in so young a man. His habits of concentration, his command of pure and elegant English, the precision and definiteness of his methods, soon brought him into prominence in his profession, and at a comparatively early age he attained distinction at the bar. His preference was for cases involving the great principles of jurisprudence rather than those that depended upon appeals to the feelings of jurymen. Nevertheless, he commanded rare success as a jury lawyer, being gifted with a certain dignified and lofty eloquence that carried conviction and sustained the current belief that he would not undertake the defence of a cause of whose justice he was not personally convinced. One of the most famous cases in which he was engaged was that of the “Amistad captives” (1839), now well-nigh forgotten, but which assumed international importance at the time. A shipload of slaves, bound to Cuba, had gained possession of the vessel. They were encountered adrift on the high seas by an American vessel and brought into New York, where they were cared for. The Spanish authorities, claimed them as the property of Spanish subjects, and the anti-slavery party at the north, then becoming a formidable element in national politics, interested itself in their behalf. The case was first tried in a Connecticut district court, decided against the Spanish claim, and carried to the supreme court of the United States. The venerable John Quincy Adams and Mr. Baldwin were associated as counsel, the latter practically conducting the case. His plea on this occasion showed such a grasp of the legal technicalities involved, that such men as Chancellor Kent rated him with the leading jurists of the time. After serving his own state in assembly and senate (1837-'41), he was elected governor in 1844, and reëlected for the following term. In 1847 he was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Jabez W. Huntington as U. S. senator. He at once took a leading place among the statesmen of the period, was reëlected for a second term, and always advocated the cause of equal rights for all during the heated controversies preceding the outbreak of the civil war. In 1860 he was one of the two electors “at large” for the choice of Mr. Lincoln, and in 1860 was appointed by Governor Buckingham a member of the “peace congress” of 1861, consisting of five delegates from each state, who, it was hoped, would devise a basis of amicable settlement of the differences between north and south. In his opening address, John Tyler, of Virginia, president of the congress, said: “Connecticut is here, and she comes, I doubt not, in the spirit of Roger Sherman, whose name, with our very children, has become a household word, and who was in life the embodiment of that sound, practical sense which befits the great law-giver and constructor of governments.” The labors of the congress came to naught, owing mainly to the precipitancy with which some of the southern states passed ordinances of secession. This was the last public service undertaken by Mr. Baldwin other than the personal assistance which every patriotic citizen lent to his country during the early years of civil war. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.



BARTLEY, Mordecai, governor of Ohio, born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, 16 December, 1783; died in Mansfield, Ohio, 10 October, 1870. In 1844 he was elected governor of Ohio on the Whig ticket. During the Mexican War, when the president issued his call for troops, Governor Bartley, though opposed to the war, promptly responded, superintending their organization in person. He remained a Whig until the disruption of that party, and subsequently acted with the Republicans.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 187:

BARTLEY, Mordecai, governor of Ohio, born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, 16 December, 1783; died in Mansfield, Ohio, 10 October, 1870. He attended school, and worked on his father's farm until 1809, when he moved to Ohio. In the war of 1812 he served in the northwest, under General Harrison, as captain and adjutant. He settled in Richland County in 1814, and remained there till 1834, when he moved to Mansfield and engaged in mercantile pursuits. Mr. Bartley was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1817, and in 1818 was chosen, by the legislature, registrar of the land-office of Virginia Military District school lands. He resigned his registrar ship in 1823, having been elected member of Congress, where he remained until 3 March, 1831. In 1844 he was elected governor of Ohio on the Whig ticket. During the Mexican War, when the president issued his call for troops, Governor Bartley, though opposed to the war, promptly responded, superintending their organization in person. In 1846 he retired to private life, declining a renomination. He remained a Whig until the disruption of that party, and subsequently acted with the Republicans. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 187.



BASHFORD, Coles, governor of Wisconsin, born near Cold Spring, Putnam County, New York, 24 January, 1816; died 25 April, 1878. He was a member of the Whig State Convention in 1851, and in 1852. He was chosen for the state senate, from which he resigned in 1855. He was the first Republican governor of the state, serving from 1855 to 1857

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography 1888, Vol. I, p. 190:

BASHFORD, Coles, governor of Wisconsin, born near Cold Spring, Putnam County, New York, 24 January, 1816; died 25 April, 1878. He was educated at the Wesleyan Seminary (now Genesee College), Lima, New York, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1841. He was elected district attorney for Wayne County, in 1847, and in 1850 resigned and moved to Algonia, now a part of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He was a member of the Whig State Convention in 1851, and in 1852 was chosen for the state senate, from which he resigned in 1855. He was the first Republican governor of the state, serving from 1855 to 1857, and declining a renomination. He practised law in Oshkosh till 1863, when he moved to Tucson, Arizona. From 1864 till 1867, he was president of the First Territorial Convention, and in 1866 was elected delegate and was attorney-general of the territory to Congress, serving from March, 1867, to March, 1869. He was appointed secretary of the territory in 1869, and served till 1876, when he resigned, and resumed the practice of his profession. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 190



BATES, Edward, 1793-1869, Virginia, statesman, lawyer, Society of Friends, Quaker. Whig Party Congressman. U.S. Attorney General, Lincoln’s cabinet. Member, Free Labor Party, Missouri. Anti-slavery activist. Opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 193; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Vol. 1, Pt. 2, pp. 48-49)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

BATES, Edward, statesman, born in Belmont. Goochland County, Virginia, 4 September, 1793; died in St. Louis, Missouri, 25 March, 1869. He was of Quaker descent, and received most of his education at Charlotte Hall, Maryland, finishing under the care of a private tutor. In 1812 he received a midshipman's warrant, and was only prevented from going to sea by his mother's influence. From February till October, 1813, he served in the Virginia Militia at Norfolk. His elder brother, Frederick Bates, having been appointed secretary of the new territory of Missouri, Edward emigrated thither in 1814, and soon entered upon the practice of law. As early as 1816 he was appointed prosecuting attorney for the St. Louis Circuit, and in 1820 was elected a delegate to the state constitutional convention. Toward the close of the same year he was appointed attorney-general of the new state of Missouri, which office he held for two years. He was elected to the legislature in 1822, and in 1824 became state attorney for the Missouri District. About this time he became the political friend of Henry Clay. In 1826, while yet quite a young man, he was elected a representative in Congress as an anti-democrat, serving but one term. For the next twenty-five years he devoted himself to his profession, but served in the legislature again in 1830 and 1834. In 1847 Mr. Bates was a delegate to the convention for internal improvement, held in Chicago, and here made a favorable impression upon the country at large. In 1850 President Fillmore offered him the portfolio of Secretary of War, which he declined. Three years later he accepted the office of judge of the St. Louis Land Court. In 1836 he presided over the Whig Convention held in Baltimore. When the question of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was agitated, he earnestly opposed it, and thus became identified with the “free-labor” party in Missouri, opposing with them the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution. Mr. Bates became more and more prominent as an anti-slavery man, until in 1859 he was mentioned as a candidate for the presidency. He was warmly supported by his own state, and for a time it seem that the opposition to Governor Seward might concentrate upon him. In the National Republican Convention of 1860 he received 48 votes on the 1st ballot; but when it became apparent that Mr. Lincoln was the favorite, his name was withdrawn. When Mr. Lincoln, after his election, decided upon selecting for his cabinet the leading men of the Democratic Party, including those who had been his principal competitors, Mr. Bates was appointed Attorney-General. In the cabinet he played a dignified, safe, and faithful, but not conspicuous, part. In 1864 he resigned his office and returned to his home in St. Louis. From this time he never again entered into active politics. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I. pp. 193.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 48-49:

BATES, EDWARD (September 4, 1793-March 25, 1869), statesman, was the son of Thomas Fleming Bates, a Virginia planter and merchant, who on August 8, 1771, had married Caroline Matilda Woodson. The young couple first lived in Henrico County and their three children were born. About 1776 the family moved to Goochland County, where a home called "Belmont" was established, and where nine more children were born, of whom Edward was the youngest. Thomas F. Bates fought as a volunteer soldier under Lafayette at the siege of Yorktown, but, as a Quaker, paid the price of this patriotic service by being read out of meeting. He also suffered heavy financial losses during the Revolutionary War and died leaving his family in straitened circumstances. Edward was taught to read and write by his father and at the age of ten was placed under the instruction of a cousin, Benjamin Bates of Hanover, Virginia, and by him was prepared to enter Charlotte Hall Academy in St. Mary's County, Maryland. He had hoped to attend Princeton, but a serious injury cut short his course at the academy and caused him to give up the idea of a college education. Through the influence of a relative, James Pleasants, a member of Congress, he was then appointed a midshipman in the navy; but because of his mother's objections he declined the appointment. In February 1813 he joined a volunteer militia company which was raised in Goochland County to assist in repelling a threatened attack on Norfolk; and he remained in the army until October, serving successively as private, corporal, and sergeant.

At the suggestion of his brother, Frederick Bates [q.v.], then secretary of Missouri Territory, Edward went out to St. Louis in 1814 and began the study of law under Rufus Easton, the foremost lawyer of the territory. In November 1816 he took out a license to practise law, and two years later formed a partnership with Joshua Barton, the brother of David Barton, one of the first United States senators from Missouri. The partnership continued until June 30, 1823, when Barton was killed in a duel. On May 29, 1823, Bates married Julia Davenport Coalter, the daughter of David Coalter, a South Carolinian who had moved to Missouri in 1817. She bore him seventeen children, eight of whom survived him.

Until he was elected to Congress in 1826, Bates held only minor public offices, though he had served acceptably as a member of the state constitutional convention of 1820, as attorney-general, and as a member of the state legislature. In the Twentieth Congress he was the sole representative of Missouri in the lower house, and already the choice of the Whig party for the United States Senate. The followers of Thomas H. Benton, however, had a majority in the state legislature, and Bates was defeated by a few votes. So strong was Jacksonian democracy in Missouri, indeed, that Bates was defeated for reelection to Congress in 1828. He was still regarded as the leader of his party, but he led a forlorn hope. About this time he moved to St. Charles County and located on a farm on Dardenne Prairie. He continued the practise of law, his services being in demand in all of the neighboring counties. There he remained until 1842 when he resumed practise in St. Louis. In 1830 he was elected to the state Senate, where he served for four years, and in 1834 was again elected to the Missouri House of Representatives. The door to more important offices seemed closed to him, but in 1847 his opportunity came. As president of the River and Harbor Improvement Convention which met at Chicago, he made an eloquent speech which attracted the attention of the public and made him a national figure (Niles' Register, LXXII, 366-67). In 1850 President Fillmore appointed him secretary of war, but for personal and domestic reasons he declined the appointment.

From this time on his views on social and constitutional questions and on national politics were sought and frequently expressed in speeches and newspaper articles. He opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, a stand which aligned him with the "free labor" party in Missouri, though he still considered himself a Whig and in 1856 acted as president of the Whig national convention which sat at Baltimore. He drew closer to the Republican party when he opposed the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution. His upright and clear-headed course attracted nation-wide attention, and in 1858 Harvard University conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D., an unusual honor for a Missourian of that day. Early in 1860 a Bates for president movement was launched in Missouri. His supporters contended that a Free-Soil Whig from a border state, if elected on the Republican ticket, would avert secession. The movement received the support of many leaders, particularly in the border states. But the decision of the national Republican committee to hold the convention at Chicago instead of at St. Louis was a serious setback to the Bates supporters and added strength to the candidacy of Lincoln. On the first ballot Bates received only 48 votes; on the second ballot 35; and on the third and deciding ballot only 22.

Soon after the Chicago convention Lincoln decided to offer Bates a cabinet position. Some of Bates's friends had urged, indeed, that he should be appointed secretary of state, but the President felt that the first place in the cabinet should go to Seward. He gave Bates his choice of any other cabinet position and the latter wisely chose that of attorney-general. He was the first cabinet officer to be chosen from the region west of the Mississippi River. For a time he had much influence in the cabinet. It was at his suggestion that the Navy Department began the equipment of a fleet on the Mississippi River. In the Trent affair, he urged that the question of legal rights be waived and that every effort be made to avert a war with Great Britain. He differed with Lincoln on the question of the admission of West Virginia to the Union. As attorney-general he filed an elaborate opinion in which he contended that the West Virginia Government represented and governed but a portion of the state of Virginia and that the movement for separate statehood was "a mere abuse, nothing less than attempted secession, hardly veiled under the flimsy forms of law."

From this time Bates's influence in the cabinet gradually waned. He disagreed with many of the military policies. He felt that as the war progressed constitutional rights were giving way before the encroachments of the military authorities. He resented the interference of Seward in matters which belonged to the attorney-general's office. He had little confidence in Stanton, Seward, or Chase, and he felt that Lincoln lacked the will-power to end what Bates considered abuses. In Missouri, moreover, the radical Republicans got control of the state government in 1864, and this meant the end of law in his home state. Weary of a cabinet position in which his views had little weight, and in the belief that he could best serve his country and his state as a private citizen, he tendered his resignation as attorney-general on November 24, 1864.

On January 6, 1865, a radical state constitutional convention assembled in St. Louis and drew up a new state constitution. It also passed an ordinance emancipating the slaves and an ouster ordinance, the intention of which was to place the state judiciary in the hands of the radicals. It also adopted a stringent test oath for voters. Bates fought the radicals by publishing a series of newspaper articles in which he pleaded for a government of law instead of a government of force. By many letters to prominent men all over the North he attempted to arouse them to the dangers of radical rule, insisting that the extreme radicals were nothing less than revolutionists who had seized upon the general zeal for putting down the rebellion and had perverted it into a means of destroying all government by law. This struggle against the Missouri radicals was his last great contest. A few months after his return to Missouri his health began to break. It steadily declined and on March 25, 1869, he died. In person Edward Bates was small. His early portraits show a strong countenance with clean cut features, piercing eyes, and a well-formed chin. Until middle life he was clean-shaven, but in his later years he wore a full beard. He was modest and unpretending, but a courageous fighter for law and justice.

[The largest collection of Bates papers, including letters and diary (June 3, 1846-December 25, 1852), is deposited with the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis. His diary (April 20, 1859-July 30, 1866) is deposited in the MS. Division of the Library of Congress See Charles Gibson, " Edward Bates," in Missouri Historical Society Collections, II, 52-56 (1900); F. W. Lehman, "Edward Bates and the Test Oath," Ibid., IV, 389- 401 (1923); " Letters of Edward Bates and the Blairs," Missouri Historical Review, XI, 123-46 (1917); Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln (1890); Gideon Welles, Diary (1911); Onward Bates, Bates, et al. of Virginia and Missouri (1914).]

T.M.M.



BELL, John, statesman, born near Nashville, Tennessee, 15 February, 1797; died at Cumberland Iron Works, Tennessee, 10 September, 1869. When petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia were resented in the House of Representatives in 1836, Mr. Bell voted to receive them, and he also opposed the “Atherton gag” in 1838. In this course he was supported by his constituents, though assailed in his position.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 226-227:

BELL, John, statesman, born near Nashville, Tennessee, 15 February, 1797; died at Cumberland Iron Works, Tennessee, 10 September, 1869. His father was a farmer in fair circumstances. He was graduated at Cumberland College (now the University of Nashville) in 1814, studied law, settled at Franklin, Tennessee, and was elected to the state senate in 1817. Declining a re-election, he adhered to his profession until 1827, when, after an excited canvass, he was elected to Congress over Felix Grundy, by a thousand majority, although Grundy had the support of General Jackson, then a presidential candidate. Bell was re-elected six times, serving in the House of Representatives until 1841, and for ten years he was chairman of the Committee on Indian affairs. He was at first a free- trader, but changed his views and became an earnest protectionist. He was opposed to nullification, and, although voting against the bill to charter the United States bank in 1832, he protested against the removal of the deposits, and this course led to a breach between him and President Jackson. He was one of the founders of the Whig Party. This change was marked by his election in 1834 to the speakership of the house, in opposition to James K. Polk, whom the Democrats supported. He joined with Judge White in the anti-Van Buren movement in Tennessee, which completed his sins in the estimation of President Jackson, who could not, however, prevent his return to Congress, as his popularity in his district remained unshaken. When petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia were resented in the House of Representatives in 1836, Mr. Bell voted to receive them, and he also opposed the “Atherton gag” in 1838. In this course he was supported by his constituents, though assailed in his position. President Harrison made him Secretary of War in 1841, but he resigned with the rest of the cabinet (Mr. Webster only excepted) when President Tyler separated from the Whigs. Declining the U. S. senatorship, offered him by the Tennessee legislature, he remained in retirement until 1847, when he was chosen to the state senate and immediately afterward to the national senate, where he remained until 3 March, 1859. He was prominent in his opposition to the policy of annexation. When the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was brought forward, in 1854, Mr. Bell opposed its passage with all his power, not only as violating the Missouri compact, to which the honor of the south was pledged, but as unsettling the compromise of 1850 to which both the great parties had solemnly subscribed. Four years later he was equally earnest in his opposition to the Lecompton constitution that had been framed for Kansas. In 1860. Mr. Bell was nominated for the presidency of the “constitutional union” party, Edward Everett receiving the nomination for the vice-president. This ticket had no chance of success, but it was well supported, receiving the electoral votes of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. At the beginning of the Civil War, Mr. Bell was one of those who condemned secession, but were also opposed to all “coercion.” On 18 April, 1861, with seven other citizens of Tennessee, he issued an address recommending his state to preserve an armed neutrality, and on 23 April, in a speech at Nashville, he favored standing by the southern states. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 226-227.



BELL, Luther Vose, was born in Chester, New Hampshire, 20 December, 1806; died in camp near Budd's Ferry, Maryland, 11 February, 1862. In 1852 he was nominated by the Whigs for Congress, and in 1856 for governor of the state.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 228:

BELL, Luther Vose was born in Chester, New Hampshire, 20 December, 1806; died in camp near Budd's Ferry, Maryland, 11 February, 1862. He was graduated at Bowdoin in 1823, and, after studying medicine with his elder brother John in New York City, received his diploma from Dartmouth in 1826. He began to practice in New York, but returned to New Hampshire after his brother's death in 1830. He became noted as a practitioner and writer, taking two Cambridge Boylston prizes by his essays before he was thirty years of age. One of his earlier operations, the amputation of the femur, was successfully performed, in default of any other accessible instruments, with the patient's razor, a tenon-saw, and a darning-needle for a tenaculum. Dr. Bell early became interested in the establishment of hospitals for the insane, and was elected twice to the legislature for the defence of his favorite plan. Although he was not successful, he brought himself into public notice, and in 1837 was chosen superintendent of the McLean Insane Asylum at Charlestown, Massachusetts In 1845, at the request of the trustees of the Butler hospital for the insane, at Providence, Rhode Island, he visited Europe for the purpose of recent improvements in lunatic asylums, and, after three months' absence, completed the plan of their present building. While at Charlestown, he brought to notice a form of disease peculiar to the insane, which is now known as “Bell's disease,” and was also called upon frequently to testify in the courts as an expert. In 1850 he was a member of the state council, and in 1853 of the convention for revising the state constitution. In 1852 he was nominated by the Whigs for Congress, and in 1856 for governor of the state, but was defeated both times. In 1856 he resigned his place in Charlestown, and when the Civil War began he entered the army as surgeon of the 11th Massachusetts Volunteers. At the time of his death he was medical director of Hooker's division. Dr. Bell published “An Attempt to investigate some Obscure Doctrines in Relation to Small-Pox” (1830), and “External Exploration of Diseases” (1836), and also described is investigations of alleged spiritual manifestations.
Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 228.



BENTON, Jacob, lawyer, Congressman, born in Waterford, Vermont, 14 August, 1819. Member of the Whig Party, and was elected to the legislature in 1854, 1855, and 1856. He was a delegate to the Republican Chicago Convention of 1860.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 239-240:

BENTON, Jacob, Congressman, born in Waterford, Vermont, 14 August, 1819. He received an academic education, and, after teaching for several years, studied law with Chief-Justice Bellows, and was He began practice at Lancaster, New Hampshire, made a high reputation as a successful advocate, and early became an earnest member of the Whig Party, and was elected to the legislature in 1854, 1855, and 1856. He was a delegate to the Chicago Convention of 1860, and afterward commanded the state volunteers as brigadier-general. He was elected to Congress from New Hampshire, serving two terms, from 4 March, 1867, till 8 March, 1871. While in Congress, Mr. Benton favored all efforts to reduce the expenses of the government and to equalize taxation. Although a clear and convincing public speaker, Mr. Benton rarely addressed the house. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 239-240.



BINGHAM, John Armor, 1815-1900, Republican Congressman, judge, advocate, U.S. Army. Elected to congress as a republican in 1854, and re-elected three times, sitting from 1855 till 1863. Bingham was one of the writers and sponsors of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. One of three military judges presiding in the Lincoln assassination trial.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888) B. B. Kendrick,; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 277-278; Journal of the Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction (1914)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 277-278:

BINGHAM, JOHN ARMOR (January 21, 1815-March 19, 1900), lawyer, Ohio politician, was born in Mercer, Pennsylvania, the son of Hugh Bingham, a carpenter. After securing such elementary education as his neighborhood offered, he spent two years in a printing office, a like period at Franklin College, then studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began practise at Cadiz, Ohio, in 1840. He soon became prominent as a stump speaker in Harrison's "log cabin, hard cider" campaign. In 1854 he was elected to Congress, and served continuously until 1873, except for the Thirty-eighth Congress, when, failing of reelection, he was appointed judge-advocate in January 1864, and solicitor of the court of claims the following August. When political fortunes failed him again in 1873 he was solaced by the appointment as minister to Japan, a position he held for twelve uneventful years.

Bingham was a clever and forceful speaker, overflowing with invective, rhetorical phrases, and historical allusions of varying degrees of accuracy. In two of the most dramatic episodes of the immediate post-war period-the trial of the assassins of Lincoln, and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson-he played a leading role. In the conspiracy trial his part as special judge-advocate was to bully the defense witnesses and to assert in his summary of the evidence that the rebellion was "simply a criminal conspiracy and a gigantic assassination" in which "Jefferson Davis is as clearly proven guilty. … as is John Wilkes Booth, by whose hand Jefferson Davis inflicted the mortal wound upon Abraham Lincoln" (Benn Pitman, Assassination of President Lincoln ..., 1865, pp. 351,380). In defending the legality of the military court set up by President Johnson, he argued that the executive could exercise all sorts of extra-constitutional powers, even to "string up the culprits without any court an argument which was somewhat embarrassing when he was selected by the House as one of seven managers to conduct the impeachment of President Johnson. He had voted against the first attempt at impeachment and had opposed the second, holding the President guilty of no impeachable offense (D. M. DeWitt, Impeachment, p. 506), but he finally yielded to party pressure and voted for impeachment after the Senate had declared the President's removal of Secretary Stanton illegal. It fell to him to make the closing speech at the trial. For three days (May 4-6) he rang the changes on the plea of the defense that the President might suspend the laws and test them in the courts-"the monstrous plea interposed for the first time in our history" (Trial of Andrew Johnson, II, 389 ff.). His confident manner carried conviction to the galleries, who pronounced it one of his greatest speeches.

In the work of reconstruction, Bingham's chief contribution was the framing of that part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment which forbade any state by law to abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law or to deny the equal protection of the laws (Kendrick, Journal, p. 106).

Bingham was married to Amanda Bingham, a cousin, by whom he had three children. He died at his home in Cadiz, Ohio. He did not introduce the resolution at the Whig national convention of 1848 containing the spirited anti-slavery apothegm carved on his monument at Cadiz, the resolution ascribed to him having been introduced by Lewis D. Campbell. Stenographic reports fail to show that Bingham ever spoke on the floor of the convention (North American and United States Gazette, and Public Ledger, both Philadelphia, for June 8, 9, 10, 1848).

[B. B. Kendrick, Journal of the Comm. of Fifteen on Reconstruction (1914); Trial of Andrew Johnson, pub. by order of the Senate as a supplement to Congressional Globe 1868); Congressional Globe, 1854-73, passim; Ohio Arch. and History Publication, X, 331-52; D. M. DeWitt, The Judicial Murder of Mrs. Surratt (1895) and The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1903); Evening Star (Washington), March 19, 1900; Cadiz Democrat Sentinel, March 22, 1900.]

T. D.M. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. p. 263;

BINGHAM, John A., lawyer, born in Mercer, Pennsylvania, in 1815. He passed two years in a printing-office, and then entered Franklin college, Ohio, but left, on account of his health, before graduation. He was admitted to the bar in 1840, was district attorney for Tuscarawas county, Ohio, from 1846 till 1849, was elected to congress as a republican in 1854, and re-elected three times, sitting from 1855 till 1863. He prepared in the 34th congress the report on the contested Illinois elections, and in 1862 was chairman of the managers of the house in the impeachment of Judge Humphreys for high treason. He failed of re-election in 1864, and was appointed by President Lincoln judge-advocate in the army, and later the same year solicitor of the court of claims. He was special judge-advocate in the trial of the assassins of President Lincoln. In 1865 he returned to congress, and sat until 1873, serving on the committees on military affairs, freedmen, and reconstruction, and in the 40th congress as chairman of the committees on claims and judiciary, and as one of the managers in the impeachment trial of President Johnson. On 3 May, 1873, he received the appointment of minister to Japan, which post he held until 1885, when he was recalled by President Cleveland. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.



BIRD, Francis William, 1809-1894, anti-slavery political leader, radical reformer. Member of the anti-slavery “Conscience Whigs,” leader of the Massachusetts Free Soil Party. Led anti-slavery faction of the newly formed Republican Party. Supported abolitionist Party leader Charles Sumner. Opposed Dred Scott decision. “Bird Club” greatly influenced radical Republican politics in Massachusetts and in the U.S. Senate. Organized Emancipation League. Supported enlistment of African Americans in the Union Army and emancipation of Blacks in the District of Columbia. Supported women’s rights, Indian rights, suffrage rights for Chinese, and other causes.

(American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Vol. 2, p. 805; Raybach, 1970 p. 184,Wilson, Henry, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, Volume 2. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1872, p. 343)



BLISS, Philemon, 1813-1889, lawyer, U.S. congressman, 1854, Chief Justice, Dakota Territory in 1861, elected Supreme Court of Missouri, 1868. Supported Whig party. Later helped found anti-slavery Free Soil Party. Agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).

(Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005, p. 76; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 165; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume I, Pt. 2, pp. 375-376)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume I, Pt. 2, pp. 375-376:

BLISS, PHILEMON (July 28, 1814-August 24, 1889), congressman, jurist, was born in North Canton, Connecticut, of early Puritan stock through both parents, Asahel and Lydia (Griswold) Bliss. The family moved to Whitestown, New York, in 1821, where Philemon attended the local academy and Oneida Institute, but lack of funds compelled him to withdraw from Hamilton College in his sophomore year, and ill health cut short his training in a local law office. He began the active practise of law at Elyria, Ohio, in 1841, and two years later married Martha W. Sharp. His public career began in 1849 with his election by the Ohio legislature as judge of the 14th judicial district where he served until 1852. Of Federalist and Whig antecedents, he had campaigned actively for Clay in 1844, but his pronounced anti-slavery views carried him into the Free-Soil party in 1848 and later into the Republican. In 1854 he was elected to Congress from a formerly Democratic district and was reelected in 1856. His dislike of controversy and his weak voice-he struggled all his life against bronchial and pulmonary weakness-unfitted him for debate, but his set speeches are able statements of the advanced anti-slavery, anti-state-sovereignty views. In 1861 he accepted an appointment as chief justice of Dakota Territory, hoping that the drier climate would relieve his throat trouble. Two years later he resigned, and coming to Missouri with improved health, in 1864, he brought his family to St. Joseph. Here he served as probate judge and as a member of the county court of Buchanan County; in 1867 he was appointed a curator of the state university, serving until 1872 and taking an active part in its reorganization. In 1868 he was elected to the state supreme court for a four-year term on the Radical or Republican ticket, and won the respect and confidence of all parties in a time of great political bitterness. The dominance of the Democratic party after 1872 ended his political career. In that year the curators of the university appointed him first dean of the newly created department of law, which position he held until his death in 1889. He died at St. Paul, Minnesota, whither he had gone for his health, and he was buried at Columbia, Missouri.

While a man of decided convictions and unquestioned intellectual courage-he was a lifelong Republican in a state and community intensely Democratic-he had an essentially judicial and peaceful temperament. In spite of his lifelong struggle against physical weakness and his retiring disposition, he gave a great and well recognized service in the training of the postbellum generation of lawyers, and in the restoration and advancement of the standards of the legal profession in Missouri. His sound legal knowledge is evidenced by his Treatise upon the Law of Pleading under the Codes of Civil Procedure '': (1870), a text nationally used and frequently revised until superseded by the modern case method.

[J. H. Bliss, Genealogy of the Bliss Family in America (1881); The Bench and Bar of St. Louis (1884), pp, 376-79; W. F. Switzler, "History of the University of Missouri" (MSS.).]

J. V.



BLOW, Henry Taylor, 1817-1875, statesman, diplomat. Active in pre-Civil War anti-slavery movement. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1863-1867, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. Blow was born in Southampton county, Virginia, July 15, 1817. In 1830 he removed to Missouri, and soon after graduated at the St. Louis University. He engaged extensively in the drug and lead business. He served four years in the Senate of Missouri. In 1861 he was appointed by President Lincoln Minister to Venezuela, but resigned the position before the expiration of a year. In 1862 he was elected a Representative from Missouri to the Thirty-Eighth Congress, and was re-elected to the Thirty-Ninth. He was succeeded in the Fortieth Congress by Carman A. Newcomb.

History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States. By William H. Barnes, 1868.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I, p. 297; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 391-392; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 1, Pt. 2, pp. 391-392:

BLOW, HENRY TAYLOR (July 15, 1817-September 11, 1875), capitalist, diplomat, congressman, was the son of Peter and Elizabeth (Taylor) Blow. When he was thirteen, his father, a Virginia planter of moderate circumstances, migrated to the West and settled in St. Louis. Henry enjoyed the best educational advantages of the time and locality and graduated with distinction from St. Louis University. He commenced the study of law but abandoned it in order to enter business with his brother-in-law. In the economic transformation of St. Louis from a frontier town to an industrial and commercial center, Blow was an important figure. He was a pioneer in the lead and lead-products business and was instrumental in the opening and development of the large lead mines of southwestern Missouri. He was also president of the Iron Mountain Railroad. The educational and cultural interests of St. Louis came soon to realize that in Blow they had a devoted friend and generous supporter; that he was, in every sense, a public-spirited citizen. In common with many of the leading business men of the city, he was a Whig. In 1854 he was persuaded to become a candidate for the state Senate and was easily elected. Here he became one of the party leaders in the turbulent sessions of the following four years when factionalism was at its height. As chairman of the important committee on banks and corporations, Blow represented adequately and effectively the commercial and financial interests of St. Louis, which were conservative. He had opposed since 1854 the extension of slavery and with the final disappearance of the Whig party, he became, successively, an American and a "black" Republican. Together with Blair, Brown, and others of similar views, Blow supported the Free-Soil movement and helped to organize the Republican party in Missouri. He was a delegate to the national convention of 1860. Laboring tirelessly to keep Missouri in the Union, in the early and critical months of the war he was active in the raising and equipping of troops for the support of the government. Lincoln appointed him minister to Venezuela in 1861 but he returned in 1862 to become a Republican candidate for Congress as a "charcoal," that is, a Republican who favored the immediate and uncompensated emancipation of the slaves in Missouri. He was elected, and was reelected in 1864. His congressional career was marked by close application to committee work and to conferences; he rarely spoke on the floor of the House and took little part in the acrimonious debates which marked the early days of reconstruction. As a member of the joint committee on reconstruction, he supported the policies of Stevens during the first session of Congress in 1866, but during the second he was a follower of the more conservative John A. Bingham. He was singularly free from those bitter personal and political animosities which were dominant during the reconstruction period, especially in the border states. As a business man he was concerned with the restoration and rehabilitation of St. Louis and her markets. He retired from public life in 1867 and devoted himself to the development of his mining properties. Because of his thorough knowledge of the important interests involved, Blow was prevailed upon to accept in 1869 the appointment as minister to Brazil, a position which he held for two years and in which he did much to further closer relations between the two countries, before returning to St. Louis to his numerous business interests. With the reorganization of the District of Columbia government in 1874, Blow reluctantly accepted an appointment on the new board of commissioners and assisted in the reconstruction of the District. He announced his definite retirement from politics in 1875, and died suddenly on September15 of that year. He was married to Minerva, daughter of Colonel Thornton Grimsley of St. Louis.

[The chief facts concerning Blow's political career can be found in the files of the Missouri Republican, the Missouri Democrat, and the Missouri Statesman during the years he was in public life. The Congressional Record for the 39th and 40th Congresses is useful for the years 1863-67. Blow's work on the joint committee on reconstruction is appraised in B. B. Kendrick, Journal of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction (1914). There are general accounts of his life in W. B. Stevens, "Lincoln and Missouri," Missouri History Review, X, 6J ff., and S. B. Harding, "Missouri Party Struggles in the Civil War Period," Annual Report, American Historical Ass., 1900; H. L. Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri (1901), I, 305-06.

J.T.S.B.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 297:

BLOW, Henry T., statesman, born in Southampton county, Virginia, 15 July, 1817; died in Saratoga, New York, 11 September, 1875. He went to Missouri in 1830, and was graduated at St. Louis university. He then engaged in the drug business and in lead-mining, in which he was successful. Before the civil war he took a prominent part in the anti-slavery movement, and served four years in the state senate. In 1861 he was appointed minister to Venezuela, but resigned in less than a year. He was a republican member of congress from 1863 till 1867, and served on the committee of ways and means. He was minister to Brazil from 1869 till 1871, and was appointed one of the commissioners of the District of Columbia in 1874. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume I. pp. 297.



BOTTS, John Minor, statesman, born in Dumfries, Prince William County, Virginia, 16 September, 1802; died in Culpepper, Virginia, 7 January, 1869. In 1833 he was elected as a Whig to represent his county in the legislature, where he at once became prominent, and several times reelected. In 1839 he was elected to Congress. He was one of the few southern members that supported John Quincy Adams in his contest against the regulations of the house infringing the right of petition, adopted by the majority in order to exclude appeals from the abolitionists.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 325-326:

BOTTS, John Minor, statesman, born in Dumfries, Prince William County, Virginia, 16 September, 1802; died in Culpepper, Virginia, 7 January, 1869. Soon after his birth his parents moved to Fredericksburg, and thence to Richmond, where they perished in the great theatre fire in 1811. Young Botts received a good education, began early to read law, and was admitted to the bar at the age of eighteen. After he had practised for six years he retired to a farm in Henrico County, and established himself as a gentleman farmer. In 1833 he was elected as a Whig to represent his county in the legislature, where he at once became prominent, and several times reelected. In 1839 he was elected to Congress, and there stood earnestly and ably by Henry Clay, zealously advocating most of the points of the leader's programme, including a national protective tariff, and the distribution among the states of the proceeds of the public lands. He was one of the few southern members that supported John Quincy Adams in his contest against the regulations of the house infringing the right of petition, adopted by the majority in order to exclude appeals from the abolitionists. After serving two terms, from 2 December, 1839, till 3 March, 1843, he was defeated by Mr. Seddon, but in 1847 re-elected, and sat from 6 December, 1847, till 3 March, 1849. In 1839 he was a delegate to the national Whig Convention, which nominated Harrison and Tyler. He had been a warm personal friend of John Tyler, elected vice-president in November, 1840, and who, by the death of General Harrison, in April, 1841, became president of the United States; but, soon after Mr. Tyler's accession to office, Mr. Botts, in a conversation with him, learned his intention of seceding from the party that had elected him, and he at once denounced him, and opposed him as long as he was president. In the campaign of 1844 he labored earnestly for the election of Mr. Clay. In 1852 Mr. Botts resumed the practice of his profession in Richmond. He earnestly opposed the repeal of the Missouri compromise in 1854, and was in sympathy with those southern representatives who resisted the passage, in 1858, of the bill admitting Kansas as a state under the Lecompton constitution. On the disruption of the Whig Party, he joined the American Party, and in 1859 an attempt was made by that political organization to nominate him for the presidency. He continued his practice, and remained in Richmond till the beginning of the Civil War; but, being devoted to the union, and having used all his efforts, without avail, to prevent Virginia from seceding, he retired to his farm near Culpepper Court-House, where he remained most of the time during the war, respected by the secessionists yet subjected to a great of trial and inconvenience. One night, in March, 1862, a squad of a hundred men, under the orders of General Winder, came to his house, took him from his bed, and carried him to prison, where he was held in solitary confinement for eight weeks. His arrest was caused by the well-founded suspicion that he was writing a secret history of the war. Search was made for the manuscript, but nothing was found. After the close of the war, this missing manuscript, of which a portion had been, in 1862, confided to the Count de Mercier. French minister at Washington, formed the basis of a volume prepared by Mr. Botts, “The Great Rebellion, its Secret History, Rise, Progress, and Disastrous Failure!” (New York 1866). After his release from prison Mr. Botts returned to his home at Culpepper, where he was continually by the enemy. His farm was repeatedly overrun by both armies, and dug over at various times for military operations. When the war had closed, Mr. Botts again took a deep interest in political matters. He labored earnestly for the early restoration of his state to the union, but without success. He was a delegate to the National Convention of Southern Loyalists in Philadelphia in 1866, and in 1867 signed his name on the bail-bond of Jefferson Davis. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 325-326.



BRADFORD, Augustus W. governor of Maryland, born in Maryland about 1805; died 1 March, 1881. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and became an active Whig politician. He was an earnest unionist during the Civil War.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 348:

BRADFORD, Augustus W., governor of Maryland, born in Maryland about 1805; died 1 March, 1881. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and became an active Whig politician. He was an earnest unionist during the Civil War. In 1861 he was a delegate to the Peace Congress, and in 1862 was elected governor of the state, serving until 1866. In July, 1864, Confederate raiders burned his house. In 1864 he was influential in securing the adoption of the new constitution of Maryland, by which slavery was abolished, and under President Johnson was Surveyor of the port of Baltimore. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 348.



BRADLEY, Joseph P., jurist, born in Berne, Albany County, New York, 14 March, 1813. In his earlier years he was attached to the Whig Party, and later be a Republican.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 352-353:

BRADLEY, Joseph P., jurist, born in Berne, Albany County, New York, 14 March, 1813. He is of English descent. […] In 1859 Lafayette College conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. In 1870, he was appointed by President Grant a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and was designated circuit justice for the large southern circuit. Subsequently, on the resignation of Justice Strong, he was assigned to the third circuit, embracing the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. During his member-ship of the Supreme Court a very large number of cases have been brought into it, involving questions arising out of the Civil War, the Reconstruction and other acts of Congress, the constitutional amendments, the difficulties and controversies of railroad companies, and other subjects. In no former equal period have as many cases of supreme importance been decided by that court. Many of them were not only novel, intricate and difficult of solution. In the investigation and decision of all of them Judge Bradley has borne a distinguished part. His mind is remarkably analytical, capable of discovering and appreciating occult though important distinctions. Added to this, his legal learning is so large and accurate, his acquaintance with English and American decisions so extensive, and his habit of looking beyond the rule for the reason or principle upon which it is founded so constant, that his opinions have been of high value. Those opinions appear in more than forty volumes of the supreme court reports, beginning with 9th Wallace. Many of them are notable alike for the importance of the subject discussed and for the manner of the discussion. In patent cases Judge Bradley has exhibited marked ability, his natural aptitude for comprehending mechanical devices qualifying him unusually for such cases. His opinions in maritime cases, in cases relating to civil rights and habeas corpus, in suits upon policies of insurance, and in cases in which statutory or constitutional construction has been required, are especially noteworthy as able and instructive. When in January, 1877, in pursuance of an Act of Congress, an electoral commission was constituted to consider and report upon the controversies that had arisen over the counting of the votes of presidential electors, Judge Bradley was a member, and, as such, concurred in the conclusions reached by the majority of the commissioners, supporting those conclusions by elaborate arguments, which were published with the other proceedings of the commission. Judge Bradley was never what is called a politician, though always holding decided opinions respecting constitutional and other public questions, and occasionally giving those opinions to the press. In his earlier years he was attached to the Whig Party, and later be a Republican. To the government he has uniformly given a steady and efficient support. When the southern states attempted secession, he devoted his power and influence to sustaining the government against disunion, and, as counsel and director of the New Jersey Railroad Companies, he assisted very materially in forwarding troops and military supplies. On several occasions he accompanied new regiments to the field, and addressed them on the pending issues. In 1862, with much reluctance, he accepted the Republican nomination for Congress in the Sixth Congressional District of New Jersey; but so strongly Democratic was the district that he was defeated. In 1868 he headed the New Jersey Republican electoral ticket. He is an accomplished mathematician, familiar with the higher and more abstruse processes of mathematical investigation and not infrequently amuses himself by indulgence in such pursuits. In 1844 he married Mary, daughter of Chief Justice Hornblower, of New Jersey by whom he has two sons and two daughters. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 352-353.



BRIGGS, George Nixon, governor of Massachusetts, born in Adams, Massachusetts, 13 April, 1796; died in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 12 September, 1861. In 1830 was elected to Congress as a Whig, serving six successive terms.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 375:

BRIGGS, George Nixon, governor of Massachusetts, born in Adams, Massachusetts, 13 April, 1796; died in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 12 September, 1861. His father served under Stark and Allen at Bennington. In 1809 he was apprenticed to a hatter at White Creek, New York, but was taken from the shop in 1811 by an elder brother and given a year's schooling. He then began the study of law, and in October, 1818, was admitted to the bar of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, where he soon became prominent, practising in Adams, Lanesborough, and Pittsfield. In 1827, by his defence of a Stockbridge Indian, who was tried for murder at Lenox, he established his reputation as one of the best criminal lawyers in the state. From 1824 till 1831 he was register of deeds for his county, and in 1830 was elected to Congress as a Whig, serving six successive terms, and being at one time chairman of the post-office committee. He was known as an eloquent debater. From 1843 till 1851 he was governor of Massachusetts. During his administration the murder of Dr. Parkman by Professor Webster occurred, and the most extraordinary efforts were made to induce the governor either to pardon the offender or to commute his sentence; but, believing that the good of the community required the execution of the murderer, he refused to interpose. Governor Briggs was appointed one of the judges of the court of common pleas in 1851, which office he continued to fill till the reorganization of the courts of the state in 1856. In 1853 he was a member of the state constitutional convention. In 1861 he was one of a commission to adjust the claims between the United States and New Granada; but his death, which resulted from the accidental discharge of a fowling-piece, occurred before he had entered upon his duties. He had taken a deep interest in the great struggle which the nation had just entered, and one of his last public acts was to address a regiment of Massachusetts volunteers, of which his son was the colonel. Governor Briggs had taken through life an active interest in religious and benevolent enterprises, and at the time of his death was president of the American Baptist Missionary Union, of the American Tract Society at Boston, the American Temperance Union, and the Massachusetts Sabbath-School Union, and director in several other benevolent societies. He was also, for sixteen years, a trustee of Williams College. A memoir of him, with the title “Great in Goodness,” was published by the Reverend William C. Richards (Boston, 1866) Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 375.



BROWNLOW, William Gannaway, journalist, born in Wythe County, Virginia, 29 Aug. 1805; died in Knoxville, Tennessee, 29 April, 1877. He became editor of the Knoxville “Whig” in 1838, and from his trenchant mode of expression became known as “the fighting parson.”

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 415-416:

BROWNLOW, William Gannaway, journalist, born in Wythe County, Virginia, 29 Aug. 1805; died in Knoxville, Tennessee, 29 April, 1877. He was left an orphan at the age of eleven, but, having earned enough by hard work as a carpenter to give himself a fair English education, he entered the Methodist ministry in 1826, and labored for ten years as an itinerant preacher. He began to take part in politics in 1828 by advocating, in Tennessee, the reelection of John Quincy Adams to the presidency; and while travelling the South Carolina circuit, in which John C. Calhoun lived, made himself unpopular by publicly opposing nullification. He afterward published a pamphlet in vindication of his course. He became editor of the Knoxville “Whig” in 1838, and from his trenchant mode of expression became known as “the fighting parson.” He was a candidate for Congress against Andrew Johnson in 1843, and in 1850 was appointed by President Fillmore one of several commissioners to carry out the provisions made by Congress for the improvement of navigation on the Missouri. Although an advocate of slavery, he boldly opposed the secession movement, taking the ground that southern institutions were safer in the union than out of it. His course subjected him to much persecution. For a time his house was the only one in Knoxville where the union flag was displayed; but all efforts to make him haul it down were unsuccessful. His paper was finally suppressed by the Confederate authorities, and in the last issue, that of 24 October, 1861, he published a farewell address to his readers, in which he said that he preferred imprisonment to submission. Refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate government, he was at last persuaded by his friends to leave Knoxville for another district. During his absence he was accused of burning railway bridges in east Tennessee, and a company of troops was sent out with orders to shoot him on sight; but he escaped by secreting himself among the loyalists on the North Carolina border. He was finally induced, by the promise of a free pass to Kentucky, to return to Knoxville, but was arrested there, 6 December, 1861, on charge of treason, and thrown into jail, where he was confined without fire, and suffered much during his imprisonment. He was released at the close of the month, but was detained at his own house under guard. Hearing that Judah P. Benjamin had called him a “dangerous man,” and had wished him out of the confederacy, Brownlow wrote him a characteristic letter, in which occur the words, “Just give me my port, and I will do more for your confederacy t'. the devil has ever done—I will leave the country.” Benjamin advised his release, to relieve the government from the odium of having entrapped him. Brownlow was taken at his word '' sent inside the union lines at Nashville, on 3 March, 1863. After this he made a tour through the northern states, speaking to immense audiences in the principal cities, and at Philadelphia was joined by his ally, who had also been expelled from Knoxville. He returned to Tennessee in 1864, and, on the reconstruction of the state in 1865, was elected governor, serving two terms. In his me of October, 1865, he advocated the removal of the Negro population to a separate territory, and declared it policy to give them the ballot. In that of November, 1866, he reiterated these sentiments, but recognized the fact that the blacks had shown greater aptitude for learning than had been expected, and, although confessing to “caste prejudice,” said he desired to act in harmony with the great body of loyal people throughout the union. In 1867 Governor Brownlow came into conflict with Mayor Brown, of Nashville, over the manner of appointing judges of election under the new franchise law. The U.S. troops were ordered to sustain the governor, and the city authorities finally submitted. During the ku-klux troubles Governor Brownlow found it necessary to proclaim martial law in nine counties of the state. In 1869 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, and resigned the office of governor. In 1875 he was succeeded in the Senate by ex-President Johnson. After the close of his term he returned to Knoxville, bought a controlling interest in the “Whig,” which he had sold in 1869, and edited it until his death. He published “The Iron Wheel Examined, and its False Spokes Extracted,” a reply to attacks on the Methodist Church (Nashville, 1856); “Ought American Slavery to be Perpetuated?” a debate with Reverend A. Prynne, of New York, in which Mr. Brownlow took the affirmative (Philadelphia, 1858); and “Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and Decline of Secession, with a Narrative of Personal Adventures among the Rebels” (1862). Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, pp. 415-416.



BUCKLAND, Ralph Pomeroy, soldier, born in Leyden, Massachusetts, 20 January, 1812. He was a delegate to the Whig National Convention of 1848, served as state senator from 1855 till 1859, and in 1861 was appointed colonel of the 72d Ohio Infantry.

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 439:

BUCKLAND, Ralph Pomeroy, soldier, born in Leyden, Massachusetts, 20 January, 1812. His father moved to Ohio when Ralph was but a few months old. He was educated at Kenyon College, but was never graduated, afterward studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1837. He was a delegate to the Whig National Convention of 1848, served as state senator from 1855 till 1859, and in 1861 was appointed colonel of the 72d Ohio Infantry. He commanded the 4th Brigade of Sherman's division at the battle of Shiloh, and was made a brigadier-general 29 November, 1862. He also commanded a brigade of the 15th Army Corps at Vicksburg and the District of Memphis during the year 1864. During an absence from the field, in 1864, he was elected to Congress, and served two terms. He resigned from the army, 9 January, 1865, and on 13 March was brevetted major-general of volunteers. He was a delegate to the Philadelphia Loyalists’ Convention of 1866, to the Pittsburgh Soldiers' Convention, and to the Republican National Convention of 1876. General Buckland was president of the managers of the Ohio Soldiers’ and Sailors' Orphans' Home from 1867 till 1873, and government director of the Pacific Railroad from 1877 till 1880. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Vol. I, p. 439.



BURCHARD, Charles, 1810-1879, New York, Wisconsin, political leader, opposed slavery. Member of the Whig and Liberty Parties. Major in the Civil War.

Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.