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Senate Years of Service: 1868-1879 Party: Republican
SPENCER, George Eliphaz, a Senator from Alabama; born in Champion, Jefferson County, N.Y., November 1,
1836; pursued classical studies; attended Montreal College, Canada; moved to Iowa; secretary of
the State senate in 1856; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1857 and practiced; during the Civil
War entered the Union Army as a captain, and when he resigned in 1865 was brevetted brigadier
general for gallantry on the field; resumed the practice of law in Decatur, Ala.; appointed register in
bankruptcy for the fourth district of Alabama 1867; upon the readmission of Alabama to
representation in 1868 was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate; reelected in 1872
and served from July 13, 1868, to March 3, 1879; chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia
(Forty-fourth Congress), Committee on Military Affairs (Forty-fifth Congress); retired to his ranch in
Nevada; died in Washington, D.C., February 19, 1893; interment in Arlington National Cemetery,
Arlington, Va.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography;
Watson, Elbert L. George Eliphaz Spencer. In Alabama United States Senators,
pp. 73-76. Huntsville, AL: Strode Publishers, 1982; Woolfolk, Sarah Van V. George E. Spencer: A
Carpetbagger in Alabama. Alabama Review 19 (January 1966): 41-52.
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