Biographical cyclopedia of the commonwealth of Kentucky, Part 49

Author: Gresham, John M., Co., Pub
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Chicago, Philadelphia, J. M. Gresham company
Number of Pages: 726

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The first battle of Manassas opened the trial by battle between the United States and the Southern Confederacy, and palsied the hands of all who hoped to save the Union by the inter- vention of the states themselves. Colonel Mar- shall retired to his farm in Henry County, Ken- tucky, intending to take such course as Kentucky might choose to pursue; but he was not destined to occupy this position long, for, in the fall of 1861, a coup d'état was planned and partially executed, of which the result would have em- braced Colonel Marshall had he remained in the state. He withdrew, in September, to Nashville, Tennessee, and afterward accepted a brigadier's commission in the Confederate army. In this rank he was entrusted with a separate command, styled "The Army of Eastern Kentucky," with which it was at first designed to invade Kentucky through her eastern mountain passes. The sur- render at Fort Donelson, in the winter of 1861-62 changed this plan, and threw the Confederacy on the defensive. In January, 1862, General Mar- shall came to action with General Garfield, of Ohio, at the forks of Middle Creek, in Floyd County, Kentucky, but neither lost many men. Both claimed victory. Marshall remained in the county-about seven miles from the field of bat- tle-until about March; Garfield fell back to Paintsville, in Johnson County.

It was the occurrences in the West that com- manded the management of the forces in the mountain passes. The campaign through the winter of 1861-2 by General Marshall's force was one of the hardest ever experienced by any sol- diery. There were no roads through the coun- try, and no mills to grind meal, except those on the mountain branches, which were barely suffi- cient to turn off about two bushels in twenty-four hours. The soldiers of General Marshall's com- mand gathered the iced shucks in the fields, shelled the corn, and took it to these mills to be ground into meal. Many a time they lived on parched corn for days, though marching from morning until night. The typhoid-pneumonia took off hun- dreds of young Kentuckians and Virginians from this command in the spring of 1862.

In May, 1862, General Marshall surprised Ma- jor-General Cox at Princeton, Virginia, and, by an action, relieved the Lynchburg and Knox- ville Railroad-indeed, Southwestern Virginia- of the presence of the Union troops. For this movement, General Robert E. Lee complimented General Marshall, in a letter written for the occa- sion.

The defeat of McClellan before Richmond, Vir- ginia, seemed to open a chance for the invasion of Kentucky; and accordingly the president of the Confederacy directed General Marshall to prepare his column to move into Kentucky, promising that he should lead this invasion. Afterward this command was given to General Bragg, and amounted to nothing, for that officer knew nothing of the topography of Kentucky, nothing of her people, and chilled by his vacillation the spirit of revolt in Kentucky. General Marshall was opposed to the retreat from Kentucky, in the fall of 1862, by the Confederate army, but was alone in his opinion in the council of war which determined upon that measure.

In the winter of 1862-3 he pursued General Carter to the Kentucky line, when that officer penetrated to the railroad near Bristol, Tennessee, but only came upon his rear-guard at Jonesville, Lee County, Virginia, as they were entering the mountain passes in retreat. In the spring of 1863 General Marshall entered Kentucky with a cav- alry force, to which it was designed to attach the

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commands of Generals Pegram and Jenkins, so as to make headquarters at Lexington, Kentucky, with some seven thousand cavalry; but the right and left wings of this force were exhausted by the independent movements of their chiefs, and this expedition effected nothing.

During his absence in Kentucky, the command of General Marshall was transferred to General William Preston of Kentucky, and General Mar- shall was ordered to report to General Joseph Johnston in Mississippi. This he did, but before a division was assigned to his command the pres- ident sent other generals of division to occupy the place designed by General Johnston for General Marshall; and as there was nothing left for the latter, but the broken brigade of Tilghman, who had been killed at Baker's Creek, General Mar- shall tendered the resignation of his commission in the army, which he insisted should be accepted by the government. This was reluctantly done when it was discovered that no other course could be pursued consistent with General Marshall's wishes.

General Marshall settled at Richmond, Virginia, to practice law in June, 1863; but the Kentuckians presented his name, and he was elected to the Sec- ond Congress of the Confederate States, in which he was placed upon the Committee on Military Af- fairs. He was re-elected, and occupied this place when Richmond was evacuated and the Southern armies surrendered. He crossed the Mississippi in July, 1865, but found the Confederate flag had yielded throughout the whole boundaries of the government. He spent the summer of 1865 in the valley of the Brazos, in Texas, and from this point obtained a permit to return to New Orleans, in November, 1865; but the public authorities would not consent to his return to Kentucky. He commenced practicing law in New Orleans, but left, in September, 1866, under a permit from President Johnson, to visit his family in Kentucky.

Once more on Kentucky soil, and in the midst of the people whom he had so long represented in the Congress of the United States, General Marshall was unconditionally pardoned by the President, and then settled to his profession in the city of Louisville. Congress subsequently re- moved all disability from his civic status, and re-

stored him to the rights to which he was born.

In 1870 the friends of General Marshall induced him to present himself as a candidate for Con- gress from the Louisville District -- and it is confi- dently believed he would have been elected had he continued a candidate to the poll-but the trickery which makes up the action of party con- ventions so disgusted him that he refused to sub- mit to the convention, and declined the candidacy. After that time, he pursued the practice of law at Louisville energetically and successfully until his death, March 28, 1872, aged sixty. While Gen- eral Marshall was by no means great as a mili- tary man, he was a statesman of considerable ability, and one of the strongest and most pro- found lawyers of Kentucky or the West.

JUDGE HENRY C. WOOD was born at Munfordville, Hart County, Kentucky, No- bember 27, 1821, and died in Louisville, February II, 1861, aged thirty-nine; graduated at Centre College, Danville, September, 1841, when the sub- ject of his graduating address was the "Legal Profession;" studied law and began the practice in his native town-where, and on the circuit, he took high rank among the leading members of the bar, Honorable Joseph R. Underwood, Judge Elijah Hise, Jesse Craddock, Frank Gorin and others; was county attorney; representative from Hart County in the legislature, 1848; removed to Louisville, 1850, and in conjunction with William F. Barret soon became a leading law firm; in August, 1858, was elected a judge of the Court of Appeals for eight years, 1858-66, but in two years and a half was carried to his final rest, "worn out, with his harness on."

G ENERAL LOVELL H. ROUSSEAU, a I lawyer, soldier and political leader, was born in Lincoln County, Kentucky, August, 1818; died in New Orleans, Louisiana, January 7, 1869. His limited education, and the death of his father in 1833, leaving a large family in straitened circumstances, made manual labor a necessity ; and, while employed in breaking rock on the Lex- ington and Lancaster turnpike, he mastered the French language. When of age he removed to the vicinity of Louisville and began the study of

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law; he was entirely without instruction, and had no conversation on the subject previous to his examination for license. In 1840 he removed to Bloomfield, Indiana; was admitted to the bar in 1841, and soon attained considerable success; was a member of the Indiana legislature in 1844, '45.

In 1846 he raised a company for the Mexican war, and took a prominent part in the battle of Buena Vista, his company losing fourteen out of fifty-one men. He was elected to the Indiana senate, four days after his return from Mexico; removed to Louisville in 1849, before the expira- tion of his term, but not being permitted by his constituents to resign, served them for one year while living out of the state. He immediately took a prominent position at the Louisville bar, his forte, like that of most lawyers who became prominent as successful commanders during the late war, being with the jury and in the manage- ment of difficult cases during the trial. He began recruiting for the United States army early in '61, but was obliged to establish his camp in Indiana; participated in most of the principal engagements in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia; was early made a brigadier general; for gallant services at Perryville won a major general's com- mission. He served with distinction in the battles of Shiloh, Stone River and Chickamauga.

JAMES SPEED was born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, March II, 1812; graduated at St. Joseph's College, Bardstown, Kentucky; studied law at Transylvania University and commenced practice at Louisville, 1833; a representative in the Kentucky legislature, 1847, and senator, 1861-63; November, 1864, appointed by Presi- dent Lincoln United States attorney general, which he resigned July, 1866, and resumed the practice of law at Louisville.

G ENERAL CHRISTOPHER RIFFE (pro- nounced Rife), the first settler of that part of Lincoln County which is now Casey County, was born of German parents, in Maryland, in 1765, married in Virginia before he was eighteen, and died March 25, 1852, aged eighty-five. He emigrated in 1784 to Bourbon County, Kentucky,

lived awhile at Bryan's Station, at Boonesborough and at Logan's Station, and in 1788 settled at Carpenter's Station, two miles west of Huston- ville, and one-fourth of a mile north of Green river (about one-half of a mile from Middleburg). Thence he removed eight miles southeast and built a cabin in the spring of 1793, where he spent the summer. In the fall, from Carpenter's Station was sent a warning of danger from In- dians; which he was disposed to disregard, say- ing, "By shinks, I ain't afraid of 'em"-and this, notwithstanding he had, less than an hour before, killed a deer on the south side of the river, and while skinning it seen five or six Indians pass overhead on the cliff. He yielded, and took his wife and child to the station; but returning next day, found everything destroyed except his cabin -even the beds ripped and the feathers scattered; and a huge stone pipe, with a long stem or cane to it, stuck in a crack of the door, and these words written on the door with charcoal, "Ain't this the devil of a pipe!"

In 1808 General Riffe was a member of the Kentucky house of representatives, occupying a seat between Henry Clay and Humphrey Mar- shall, when the latter gave the insult which re- sulted in a duel. The former resented it on the spot, attacking Marshall, but Riffe (who was a tall, muscular and powerful man) seized each with one hand and held them apart, saying earnestly, "Come, poys, no fighting here, I whips you both," and closed the scene for the present.

THOMAS E. BRAMLETTE was born in Cumberland County, Kentucky, January 3, 1817; admitted to the bar in 1837; elected to the state legislature from the Counties of Cumber- land and Clinton; appointed commonwealth's at- torney by Governor Crittenden in 1848, and was the terror of violators of law in his district; resigned his position two years afterward and resumed the practice of law. In 1856 was elected judge of the Sixth Judicial District, where his decisions placed him among the foremost of Ken- tucky's expounders of law. Resigned the judge- ship to go into the army, and, taking the Federal side, was elected colonel of the Third Kentucky Infantry. Appointed United States district attor-

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ney, vice James Harlan, deceased; but also re- signed that position to accept the "Union" nom- ination for governor. He was elected for four years, from September, 1863, to September, 1867, and served through the entire time of many of the most trying scenes to which Kentucky was sub- jected after she became a state. Governor Bram- lette afterward located at Louisville, where, until his death, January 12, 1875, he was a distinguished and successful lawyer.

G OVERNOR R. P. LETCHER was a native of Garrard County, where he resid- ed and practiced law until 1840; was a representa- tive in the legislature frequently ; in Congress for ten years, 1823-33, and again in the legislature; was always a firm and consistent Whig, and in De- cember, 1831, received the whole vote of the entire Whig representation for speaker of the house. In 1838 was speaker of the Kentucky house of rep- resentatives, and as such distinguished for energy and promptitude. As the Whig candidate, he was elected governor, August, 1840, for four years, by 15,720 majority over Judge Richard French. Although one of the most popular electioneerers in the state, he was beaten for Congress in the Lexington district, August, 1853, by Major John C. Breckinridge, by 526 majority-owing to the remarkable popularity of the latter in Owen Coun- ty. He died in Frankfort, January 24, 1861.

E X-GOVERNOR JAMES T. MOREHEAD was born May 24, 1797, near Shepherdsville, Bullitt County, Kentucky, and died in Coving- ton, Kentucky, December 28, 1854, aged fifty-sev- en; when three years old removed with his father to Russellville, Logan County, where he enjoyed the advantages of the village schools; was at Transylvania University, 1813-15; studied law with Judge H. P. Broadnax, and afterwards with John J. Crittenden, who was then living at Rus- sellville; settled at Bowling Green and began the practice of law in the spring of 1818; was elected to the legislature, 1828, '29, '30; while attending the convention at Baltimore which nominated Henry Clay for the presidency and John Ser- geant for the vice presidency, was nominated for lieutenant governor, and elected August, 1832;

upon the death of Governor John Breathitt, Feb- ruary, 1834, was inaugurated governor, serving until September, 1836; was made ex-officio presi- dent of the board of internal improvement, Feb- ruary, 1835, and afterwards, under a change of the law, in 1838, commissioned by Governor Clark to the same office-having already, since March, 1837, been the state agent for the sale of bonds for internal improvement purposes; resumed the practice of law at Frankfort in the fall of 1836, and was elected to the legislature from Franklin County, August, 1837; in the winter of 1839-40, he and Colonel John Speed Smith were elected by the legislature commissioners to the state of Ohio, to obtain the passage of a law for the protection of the property of citizens of Kentucky in their slaves-which mission was entirely successful; was United States senator from Kentucky, 1841-47, and on his retirement resumed the prac- tice of law at Covington. In the United States senate as a debater, few men ranked higher; whenever announced to speak, the lobbies and galleries were filled with spectators. As a speak- er, he was remarkably fluent and energetic, with a manner eminently graceful and dignified. As a statesman, he was sound and conservative, and his political and general information was exten- sive and varied. His library, embracing the larg- est collection then known of works relating to the history of Kentucky, was purchased by the Young Men's Mercantile Association of Cincinnati. His address at the anniversary of the first settlement of Kentucky at Boonesborough, in 1840, was an invaluable historical summary, and rescued from oblivion a number of documents not elsewhere preserved.

C HARLES S. MOREHEAD was born in Nelson County, Kentucky, July 7, 1802. Graduated at Transylvania University, and re- moved to Christian County, where he commenced the practice of law. He was elected to the legis- lature in 1827, when barely eligible, receiving nearly every vote in the county; and was elected for a second term. On its expiration, he re- moved to Frankfort, as a more extended field for the practice of his profession. He was appointed attorney general of Kentucky in 1832, and held

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that office for five years. In 1838-39-40, he was returned to the legislature from Franklin County, the last year officiating as speaker of the house; was re-elected and made speaker in 1841; again in 1842; and, in 1844, for the third time he was chosen speaker. He was a representative in Con- gress from 1847 to 1851. Was again sent to the legislature in 1853, and chosen governor in 1855 for the term of four years. At the expiration of his term, in 1859, he removed to Louisville, and formed a law partnership with his nephew, Charles M. Briggs, Esq. His reception there was a per- fect ovation. He was received at the railroad depot by a committee of citizens and escorted to the Galt House, formally welcomed, and made an address. After the secession of South Caro- lina, he was prominent among the conservatives of his state in laboring to avert civil war. He was a delegate from Kentucky to the "Peace Conference" at Washington, in February, 1861, and again to the "Border State Convention," at Frankfort, in May of that year.

H ON. JOSHUA FRY BELL was born in Danville, Ky., Nov. 26, 1811, and died there, Aug. 17, 1870, aged nearly fifty-nine. His father was a leading merchant of Danville, a na- tive of Newry, Ireland; his mother, Martha Fry, of Virginia, was the daughter of Joshua Fry, dis- tinguished for his literary attainments and, after his removal to Kentucky, as an educator of many of the great men of the state, and the granddaugh- ter of Dr. Thomas Walker, already spoken of under this county as the first white visitor to the interior of Kentucky (in 1750), and who in 1780 surveyed the boundary line between Kentucky and Tennessee. His great-grandfather, Col. John Fry, of Virginia, was commander of the American forces during the Colonial days, previous to the election of General Washington.

Joshua F. Bell graduated in 1828, when sixteen and a half years old, at Centre College, then under the presidency of Rev. John C. Young, D. D .; studied law at Lexington; spent several years in travel in Europe; at twenty-two, returned to Dan- ville, and entered upon the practice of law, obtain- ing a large and lucrative practice, which he zeal- ously cultivated until ill health prevented, a few

months before his death; was representative in congress for two years, 1845-47; secretary of state under Governor John J. Crittenden, 1850; made a remarkable race as the opposition candidate for governor, in 1859, being beaten by Governor Magoffin; was chosen by the Kentucky legisla- ture, by a unanimous vote in the senate and 81 to 5 in the house, one of six commissioners to the Peace Conference at Washington City, Feb- ruary, 1861, and there plead most earnestly for "peace between embittered and hating brothers;" March 19, 1863, was nominated by the Union Democratic state convention for governor, receiv- ing 627 votes to 171 for acting-governor James F. Robinson.

S HADRACH PENN, Jr., one of the most dis- tinguished of Kentucky editors, was born in Maryland, in 1790; brought when young to Scott County, Kentucky, where he assisted his parents on the farm; learned the printing business at Georgetown, and for a while published a news- paper at Lexington; spent some time at mer- chandising; was a soldier in the War of 1812; in 1818, started the Public Advertiser at Louisville, of which he was editor and one of the publishers until 1841; removed to St. Louis, and started the Reporter, a Democratic newspaper, editing it un- til his death in June, 1846, aged fifty-six. He was an earnest antagonist of Colonel Benton's favorite idea of an exclusive gold and silver currency for Missouri-preferring the safe system of Mis- souri banks with a limited issue, to the flood of doubtful bank issues from other states. Under the lead of his paper, the state bank system was continued, the district-plan for election of mem- bers to congress prevailed over the old general- ticket practice, and internal improvements by the state were sustained. He became a power in the politics of Missouri.

Mr. Penn had been a power in the politics of Kentucky, too-the champion of the Democratic party. On the "old court" and "new court" issues which convulsed the state, from 1822-27, he had vanquished the famous Amos Kendall, and scarce- ly an editor in the country had been able to cope with him. Indeed, the only exception was George D. Prentice, who out-generaled him, if at all, by

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bull-dog perseverance and terrific sallies of wit and ridicule. Prentice spoke of him, after his death, as an able and sincere man, but lacking in ready self-possession. He was too sensitive to the tortures of Prentice, and fled the field. Prentice said of him, then, that his removal would be re- garded as a public calamity. Of all the history of newspapers in Louisville, the eleven years of con- troversy between those two is recounted with most zest and relish. Of all the prominent Democratic editors of his day, Penn alone seemed to care nothing for office or position. His life was one of controversy; he was fond of it. He was a great journalist, if not a great statesman.

C HANCELLOR GEORGE M. BIBB, born October 30th, 1776, in Prince Edward County, Virginia, was the son of Richard Bibb, an Episcopal clergyman of great learning. His earliest recollections were of the struggle for American independence, which began at his birth; and he died just before the war for the independ- ence of his native state and the South had con- centrated its unrecorded horrors around his birth- place. He was the last representative at the na- tional capital of the "gentleman of the old school;" and, refusing to give up the fashion of his early life for the pantaloons of the present day, the "tights" or "small clothes" were not even odd in the elegant old-time gentleman, but added to the popular respect and reverence for him.

Judge Bibb was well educated, a graduate of Hampden Sydney and also of William and Mary Colleges-and in his latter days was the oldest surviving graduate of each. Studying his pro- fession with that distinguished lawyer, Richard Venable, he practiced in Virginia a short time, and removed to Lexington, Kentucky, in 1798. He attracted business by his legal acquirements, solid judgment, and cogent reasoning, and was soon numbered among the ablest and soundest in a state already prominent for great lawyers. He was appointed by Governor Greenup one of the judges of the Court of Appeals, January 31, 1808; and by Governer Scott, its chief justice, May 30, 1809, but resigned in March, 1810; and again, by Governor Desha, was appointed chief

justice, for the second time, January 5, 1827, but resigned December 23, 1828.

Judge Bibb was twice elected to the United States senate (the third of five Kentuckians who have enjoyed this distinction)-first in 1811, but resigned in 1814, and second in 1829, serving the full term of six years, to 1835. During the war of 1812, he, in the senate, and Wm. Lowndes and John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, and Henry Clay, in the United States house of representa- tives, formed what was called the "War Mess" of the Madison administration-from having sup- ported the war and the President with such great talent, vigor, and zeal. He settled in Frankfort in 1816. From 1835 to 1844, Judge Bibb held the important position of chancellor of the Louis- ville Chancery Court; but resigned, to become United States secretary of the treasury in the cab- inet of his old colleague in the United States sen- ate, President Tyler, holding it to the close of his presidential term, 1844 to March 4, 1845. Thence- forward, until his death, April 14, 1859, aged eighty-three years, he practiced law in the courts of the District of Columbia, most of the time in the position of chief clerk in the department of the United States attorney-general, but really do- ing the duties now required of the assistant attor- ney-general, an office established for the very labors performed by him.

G EORGE DENISON PRENTICE, a distin- guished editor and poet, born December 18, 1802, in New London County, Connecticut (one account says in Griswold, and another in Preston, towns within eight miles of each other); died a few miles below Louisville, Kentucky, Jan- uary 21, 1870, aged sixty-seven; a fluent reader at four years of age; could translate and parse any verse in Virgil or Homer at fifteen, and was ready for college, but want of means compelled him to teach school two years; entered the sopho- more class at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, in 1820, and graduated in 1823; studied law, but finding the practice uncongenial, abandoned it; editor of the Connecticut Mirror, 1825; associated with John G. Whittier in the publication of the New England Weekly Review,

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Biographical cyclopedia of the commonwealth of Kentucky, Part 49

Author: Gresham, John M., Co., Pub Publication date: 1896 Publisher: Chicago, Philadelphia, J. M. Gresham company Number of Pages: 726

Author: Gresham, John M., Co., Pub
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Chicago, Philadelphia, J. M. Gresham company
Number of Pages: 726