William Henry Sneed

William Henry Sneed (born August 27, 1812 in Davidson County , Tennessee , †  September 18, 1869 in Knoxville , Tennessee) was an American politician . Between 1855 and 1857 he represented the state of Tennessee in the US House of Representatives .

Career

William Sneed moved his family to Rutherford County after elementary school . After a subsequent law degree and his admission as a lawyer in 1834, he began to work in Murfreesboro in his new profession. Politically he was then a member of the Whigs . Between 1843 and 1845 he was a member of the Tennessee Senate . There he campaigned unsuccessfully for the relocation of the state capital to Murfreesboro. From 1845 he lived in Knoxville.

After the Whig Party broke up, Sneed joined the short-lived American Party . In the congressional election of 1854 he was elected as their candidate in the second constituency of Tennessee to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC , where he succeeded William Montgomery Churchwell on March 4, 1855 . Since he renounced another candidacy in 1856, he could only complete one legislative period in Congress until March 3, 1857 . This was shaped by the events leading up to the civil war . In Congress, Sneed chaired the Committee on Mileage .

After leaving the US House of Representatives, William Sneed returned to work as a lawyer. He turned down a nomination for the office of district judge. He later became a member of the Democratic Party . In the run-up to the Civil War, Sneed was initially against Tennessee leaving the Union. At the end of the 1850s, however, he changed his mind and supported the secession movement . He stayed in Knoxville until 1863. When Union troops took the city, he fled to Bristol . The Union's local commander used Sneed's house as his headquarters. In 1867, Sneed returned to Knoxville. There he worked again as a lawyer. He also managed to get back some of his confiscated property. William Sneed died in Knoxville on September 18, 1869.

Web links

• William Henry Sneed in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• William Henry Sneed in the database of Find a Grave (English)