Thomas Ewing, Jr.

Thomas Ewing Jr.

Thomas Ewing, Jr. (born August 7, 1829 in Lancaster , Ohio , †  January 21, 1896 in New York City ) was an American politician . Between 1877 and 1881 he represented the state of Ohio in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Life until civil war

Thomas Ewing Jr. was the son of Thomas Ewing (1789–1871), who represented the state of Ohio in both chambers of Congress and was both Treasury Secretary and Secretary of the Interior of the United States . He was also the brother-in-law of General William T. Sherman ; his brothers Charles and Hugh served as generals in the Union Army during the Civil War .

He began studying at Brown University in Providence ( Rhode Island ). In 1849 and 1850 he served as the private secretary to US President Zachary Taylor . At the same time, his father was a member of his cabinet as Minister of the Interior . In 1854 he graduated from Brown University. After studying law and being admitted to the bar in 1855, he began working in this profession in Cincinnati . In 1856 he moved to Leavenworth , Kansas Territory , where he campaigned for the area to join the Union as a slave-free state. In 1858 he was a delegate to the Leavenworth Constitutional Convention .

At that time Ewing also got into the railroad business and supported plans for a transcontinental rail link. In the spring of 1861 he was a member of a negotiating commission that unsuccessfully tried to prevent the outbreak of civil war in the federal capital, Washington. In 1861 and 1862 he was the first Chief Justice of the new state of Kansas .

Civil war

During the civil war, like his two brothers mentioned, he served in the Union's army. He became a Brigadier General and Brevet Major General .

His regiment fought in James G. Blunts Division in the battles of Old Fort Wayne (in Delaware County, Oklahoma ), Cane Hill, and Prairie Grove . Ewing was responsible for General Order No. 11 issued in response to William Quantrill's attack on Lawrence, Kansas. 150 civilians were murdered there. The order ordered southern sympathizers to be expelled.

In September and October 1864 he defended Missouri against Sterling Price 's invasion at the Battle of Fort Davidson near Pilot Knob, Missouri .

After the war

Between 1865 and 1871 he practiced as a lawyer in the federal capital Washington, DC . He also served as legal counsel for Samuel Arnold and Edmund Spangler, who were charged and sentenced to prison terms for their involvement in the assassination attempt on President Abraham Lincoln . He was also instrumental in the failure of President Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial by persuading US Senator Edmund Gibson Ross not to vote against the president. Johnson in turn offered Ewing the post of Secretary of War , but the latter refused.

After 1871 Thomas Ewing moved to Lancaster, Ohio, where he practiced as a lawyer, but also worked in various other business areas such as the railroad and the telegraph service. In 1873 and 1874 he was a delegate to a constitutional convention of his state. In the congressional election of 1876 Ewing was elected as a candidate for the Democratic Party in the twelfth constituency of Ohio to the US House of Representatives in Washington, where he succeeded Ansel T. Walling on March 4, 1877 . After being re-elected, he was able to complete two terms in Congress until March 3, 1881. Since 1879 he represented the tenth district of his state there as the successor to the Republican Charles Foster . In 1880 he renounced another candidacy. The year before he had failed with a candidacy for governor of Ohio to Charles Foster.

After his time in the US House of Representatives, Thomas Ewing moved to New York City, where he worked as a lawyer again. He died there on January 21, 1896. He is on the Oakland Cemetery in Yonkers in the US state of New York buried.

literature

• Ronald D. Smith: Thomas Ewing Jr .:. Frontier Lawyer and Civil War General. University of Missouri Press, Columbia 2018, ISBN 978-0-8262-2179-7 .

Web links

Commons : Thomas Ewing, Jr.  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

• Thomas Ewing, Jr. in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Thomas Ewing, Jr. in the database of Find a Grave (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Eicher, John H., and David J. Eicher , Civil War High Commands. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8047-3641-3 . P. 230