William Preston

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Birth Date

1816-10-16

Death Date

1887-09-21

Gender

Race Description

White

Entity Type

Person

"William Preston" in the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/N00008205, (accessed March 15, 2025).

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Kentucky politician, attorney, minister, and soldier. Jefferson County, Kentucky, native. Educated at Augusta College. Educated at St. Joseph's College. Graduated from the law department at Harvard University in 1838. Began practicing law in Louisville in 1840, associated with Hon. William J. Graves. Lieutenant colonel of the 4th Regiment of Kentucky Volunteer Infantry during the Mexican American War, under the command of General William O. Butler. Returned to Louisville in 1849. Member of the Whig Party. Member of the Kentucky Constitutional Convention in 1849. Member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, from Louisville, in 1850. Member of the Senate of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, from Jefferson County, in 1851. Presidential elector, supporting Whig candidate Winfield Scott, in 1852. Member of the House of Representatives of the United States from 1852 to 1855. Minister to Spain from 1858 to 1861. Colonel on the staff of General Albert Sidney Johnston from 1861 to 1862. Promoted to brigadier general in 1862. Minister to Mexico, from the Confederate States, in 1864. Returned to Texas and joined E. Kirby Smith, in 1864. Promoted to major general.

The Biographical Encyclopaedia of Kentucky of the Dead and Living Men of the Nineteenth Century (Cincinnati, OH: J.M. Armstrong & Company, 1878), 354-55. Charles M. Hubbard, The Burden of Confedrate Diplomacy (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998). Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, s.v. “Preston, William,” (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=P000517) (accessed January 11, 2018). "The Illustrious Dead. Reminiscences of the Brilliant and Eventful Life of Gen. Preston," Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.), September 26, 1887, p. 5.

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