Green, Duff

Born: 1791-08-15 Woodford County, Kentucky

Died: 1875-06-10 Dalton, Georgia

Green grew up in Kentucky, studied medicine, and enlisted in the U.S. Army with the outbreak of the War of 1812. In 1813, he married Lucretia M. Edwards, the sister of Ninian Edwards, and the couple had nine children. Sometime after the war, he moved to Missouri, where he became wealthy through land speculation and various other endeavors. While in Missouri, he served in the Missouri General Assembly and in 1823 began his most famous profession, that of a newspaper editor, when he purchased the Saint Louis Enquirer, a political organ dedicated to the Democratic Party. In 1825, Green moved to Washington, DC, and purchased the United States Telegraph. In 1829, he became the official printer of Congress, and he was a member of President Andrew Jackson's "Kitchen Cabinet." Throughout the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s, he was a prominent and outspoken newspaper editor and political operator. Although Green was not a secessionist, he sided with the South in the Civil War. A few times during the war, Green corresponded with Abraham Lincoln and, in 1865, he met with Lincoln to discuss possibilities for peace.

Joel H. Silbey, "Green, Duff," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 9:484-85.