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Senate Years of Service: 1845-1849; 1863-1865; 1865-1868 Party: Whig; Unionist; Democrat
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JOHNSON, Reverdy, (brother-in-law of Thomas Fielder Bowie),
a Senator from Maryland; born in Annapolis, Md., May 21, 1796;
graduated, St. Johns College, Annapolis, Md., 1811; studied law; admitted to
the bar in 1815 and commenced practice in Upper Marlboro; deputy attorney
general of Maryland 1816-1817; moved to Baltimore in 1817; appointed chief
commissioner of insolvent debtors of Maryland in 1817; member, State senate
1821-1829; resumed the practice of law in Baltimore; elected to the United
States Senate as a Whig and served from March 4, 1845, to March 7, 1849, when
he resigned to become Attorney General; appointed by President Zachary Taylor
Attorney General of the United States 1849-1850; member of the peace convention
of 1861 held in Washington, D.C., in an effort to devise means to prevent the
impending war; member, State house of representatives 1860-1861; elected as a
Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1863, to July 10,
1868, when he resigned; United States Minister to England in 1868 and 1869;
returned to Baltimore, Md., where he resumed the practice of his profession;
compiler of the reports of decisions of the Maryland Court of Appeals; died in
Annapolis, Md., February 10, 1876; interment in Greenmount Cemetery, Baltimore,
Md.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography;
Dictionary of American Biography;
The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law; Steiner,
Bernard.
Life of Reverdy Johnson. 1914. Reprint. New York: Russell
& Russell, 1970.
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