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Senate Years of Service: 1868-1873 Party: Republican
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OSBORN, Thomas Ward, a Senator from Florida; born in Scotch Plains, Union County, N.J., March 9,
1833; moved to New York in 1842 with his parents, who settled in North Wilna; attended the
common schools and graduated from Madison (now Colgate) University, Hamilton, N.Y., in
1860; studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1861; during the Civil War entered the Union
Army in 1861 as lieutenant and became captain, major, and colonel of Battery D, First
Regiment, New York Light Artillery; appointed assistant commissioner of the Bureau of
Refugees and Freedmen for Florida 1865-1866; settled in Tallahassee, Fla., and commenced the
practice of law; appointed register in bankruptcy in 1867; member of the State constitutional
convention in 1868; moved to Pensacola, Fla.; member, State senate; upon the readmission of
Florida to representation was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate and served
from June 25, 1868, to March 3, 1873; was not a candidate for reelection; served as United
States commissioner at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1876; moved to New
York City and resumed the practice of law; also engaged in literary pursuits; died in New York
City, December 18, 1898; interment in Hillside Cemetery, North Adams, Berkshire County,
Mass.
BibliographyOsborn, Thomas Ward. No Middle
Ground: Thomas Ward Osbornes Letters from the Field (1862-1864). Edited by Herb
S. Crumb and Katherine Dhalle. Hamilton, NY: Edmonston Publishing, 1993; Osborn, Thomas
Ward. The Fiery Trail: A Union Officers Account of Shermans Last Campaigns. Edited by Richard Harwell and Philip N. Racine. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,
1986.
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