Brown, Benjamin G.

Born: 1826-05-28 Lexington, Kentucky

Died: 1885-12-13 Kirkwood, Missouri

Normally addressed as "B. Gratz," Benjamin G. Brown was an attorney, state representative, newspaper editor, army officer, and U.S. senator. In 1845, he graduated from Transylvania University. Two years later, he graduated from Yale College. He then studied law in Louisville, Kentucky, gained admission to the bar in 1849, and began practicing law in Saint Louis, Missouri. During the early-1850s he became a Free Soil Democrat, but later converted to the Republican Party and supported gradual emancipation of enslaved persons. In 1852, he won election to the Missouri House of Representatives, where he served from 1852 to 1858. He co-founded the Missouri Democrat and served as its chief editor starting in 1854. Under his leadership, the paper became Republican. In August 1858, he married seventeen-year-old Mary Gunn. They had at least eight children together. He came out against the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the expansion of slavery, was loyal to the Union during the Civil War, and helped prevent the secession of Missouri in 1861. He also enlisted in the Union Army, raised a regiment, and served as its commander at the rank of colonel. During a special election to fill the vacancy left by Waldo P. Johnson, he was elected to the U.S. Senate as an Unconditional Unionist and served from November 13, 1863 to March 3, 1867.

Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 719; Norma L. Peterson, Freedom and Franchise: The Political Career of B. Gratz Brown (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1965), 16-18, 29, 33, 68, 73, 87, 168, 229, 231; David Herbert Donald, Lincoln (New York: Touchstone, 1995), 211; Missouri, U.S., Compiled Marriages, 1805-2002, 17 August 1858, Cole County (Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2007); U.S., Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2009); Gravestone, Oak Hill Cemetery, Kirkwood, MO.