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John C. Breckinridge Photos History
Vice President John C. Breckinridge
| John Cabell Breckinridge |
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| 14th Vice President of the United States (Library of Congress) |
BRECKINRIDGE, John Cabell,
(grandson of John Breckinridge, father of Clifton Rodes Breckinridge, and cousin of Henry Donnel Foster), a Representative
and a Senator from Kentucky and a Vice President of the United States; born at ‘Cabell’s Dale,’ near Lexington,
Ky., January 16, 1821; attended Pisgah Academy, Woodford County, Ky.; graduated from Centre College, Danville, Ky., in 1839;
later attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University); studied law in the Transylvania Institute, Lexington,
Ky.; admitted to the bar in 1840; moved to Burlington, Iowa, but soon returned and began practice in Lexington, Ky.; major
of the Third Kentucky Volunteers during the Mexican-American War in 1847 and 1848; member, State house of representatives 1849; elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-second and Thirty-third
Congresses (March 4, 1851-March 3, 1855); was not a candidate for renomination in 1854; was tendered the mission to Spain
by President Franklin Pierce, but declined; elected Vice President of the United States in 1856 on the Democratic ticket with
James Buchanan as President; unsuccessful candidate for President in 1860; elected to the United States Senate and served
from March 4, 1861, until expelled by resolution of December 4, 1861, for support of the rebellion; entered the Confederate
Army during the Civil War as brigadier general and soon became a major general; Secretary of War in the Cabinet of the Confederate
States from January until April 1865; resided in Europe until 1868; returned to Lexington, Ky., and resumed the practice of
law; vice president of the Elizabethtown, Lexington Big Sandy Railroad Co.; died in Lexington, Ky., May 17, 1875; interment
in Lexington Cemetery.
Bibliography:
Official Records of the Union
and Confederate Armies; American National Biography; Dictionary of American
Biography; Davis, William. John C. Breckinridge: Statesman, Soldier, Symbol. Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1974; Heck, Frank. Proud Kentuckian, John C. Breckinridge, 1821-1875.
Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,
1976; Library of Congress; National Park Service; National Archives and Records Administration; Memoirs of William Williams
Stringfield, 1901.
Advance to:
Highly Recommended Reading: Breckinridge:
Statesman, Soldier, Symbol (Southern Biography Series) (Paperback, 688 pages)
John C. Breckinridge Vice President of the United States History Photos Confederate General John
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