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Senate Years of Service: 1873-1880; 1891-1897 Party: Democrat; Democrat
GORDON, John Brown, a Senator from Georgia; born in Upson County, Ga., February 6, 1832; attended
private schools and the University of Georgia at Athens; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1853 and
commenced practice in Atlanta, Ga.; engaged in coal mining; upon the outbreak of the Civil War
entered the Confederate Army as captain of Infantry and rose to lieutenant general; resumed the
practice of law in Atlanta, Ga.; unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor in 1868; elected as
a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1873; reelected in 1879 and served from March 4, 1873,
until May 26, 1880, when he resigned to promote the building of the Georgia Pacific Railroad;
chairman, Committee on Commerce (Forty-sixth Congress); Governor of Georgia 1886-1890; again
elected to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1891, to March 3, 1897; declined to
be a candidate for reelection; chairman, Committee on Coastal Defenses (Fifty-third Congress);
engaged in lecturing and literary work; died in Miami, Fla., January 9, 1904; interment in Oakland
Cemetery, Atlanta, Ga.
BibliographyDictionary of American Biography;
Culpepper, Grady S. The Political Career of John Brown Gordon, 1868 to 1897. Ph.D. dissertation,
Emory University, 1981; Eckert, Ralph L. John Brown Gordon: Soldier, Southerner,
American. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989.
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