Charles Anderson Wickliffe

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Birth Date

1788-06-08

Death Date

1869-10-31

Gender

Race Description

White

Entity Type

Person

"Charles Anderson Wickliffe" in the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/N00000816, (accessed November 4, 2025).

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Kentucky attorney and politician. Educated at preparatory schools. Admitted to the bar in 1809. Attorney in Bardstown, Kentucky. Married to Margaret Crepps Wickliffe. Father of Elizabeth B Wickliffe Kinkead, Mary Wickliffe Merrick, Robert Charles Wickliffe, Margaret Wickliffe Holt, Nancy Christian Wickliffe Yulee, and Julia Wickliffe Beckham. Aide to General Joseph Winlock and aide to General Samuel Caldwell in the War of 1812. Member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from 1812 to 1813. Member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1822, 1823, and from 1833 to 1835. Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1834. Served the Fifth Congressional District of Kentucky as a Jackson Republican member of the House of Representatives of the United States from 1823 to 1824 and as a Jacksonian from 1825 to 1832. Served the Fifth Congressional District of Kentucky as a Unionist member of the House of Representatives of the United States from 1861 to 1863. Lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from 1836 to 1839. Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from 1839 to 1840. United States Postmaster General from 1841 to 1845. Special agent to the Republic of Texas under U.S. President James K. Polk in 1845. Member of the 1849 Kentucky Constitutional Convention. Member of the peace conference held in Washington, D.C. in 1861. Unsuccessfully campaigned as a Kentucky Peace Democrat for governor in 1863 against Thomas E. Bramlette. Delegate to the 1864 Democratic National Convention.

Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, s.v. “Wickliffe, Charles Anderson,” (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=W000442) (accessed December 12, 2016).
“Wickliffe, Charles Anderson,” The Kentucky Encyclopedia, ed. John E. Kleber (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 950-951.
Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Nelson County, District No.2. Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Nelson County, District No 1, p. 8.
Find a Grave, “Charles Anderson Wickliffe (June 8, 1788-October 31, 1869),” Memorial #15525364, http://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15525364, (accessed December 12, 2016).

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