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Senate Years of Service: 1925-1929 Party: Democrat
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TYSON, Lawrence Davis, a Senator from Tennessee; born on a farm near Greenville, Pitt County, N.C., July 4,
1861; attended the county schools and Greenville Academy, and graduated from the United States
Military Academy at West Point in 1883; took part in campaigns against the Apache Indians;
professor of military science and tactics in the University of Tennessee at Knoxville 1891-1895, and
graduated in law from that university in 1894; resigned his commission, was admitted to the bar in
1894, and commenced practice in Knoxville; volunteered in 1898 for service during the
Spanish-American War, and was appointed colonel of the Sixth Regiment, United States Volunteer
Infantry, which he recruited, trained, and took to Puerto Rico; was mustered out in 1899; engaged in
the practice of law at Knoxville and later in manufacturing; brigadier general and inspector general of
the National Guard of Tennessee 1902-1908; member, State house of representatives and served as
speaker 1903-1905; was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1913;
volunteered for service at the outbreak of the First World War and was commissioned brigadier
general in command of all National Guard troops of Tennessee; later commissioned by President
Woodrow Wilson as a brigadier general and assigned to the Fifty-ninth Brigade, Thirtieth Division;
trained troops at Camp Sevier, Greenville, S.C.; fought in France and Belgium and was discharged in
1919; resumed newspaper pursuits; was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for
Vice President in 1920; elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4,
1925, until his death in a sanitarium at Strafford, Pa., on August 24, 1929; interment in Old Gray
Cemetery, Knoxville, Tenn.
BibliographyDictionary of American Biography;
U.S. Congress. Memorial Addresses. 71st Cong., 1st sess., 1929. Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1930.
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