Cabell Breckinridge died, but she survived. On his return, both his wife and he fell ill. In August 1823, an illness referred to as "the prevailing fever" struck Frankfort, and Cabell Breckinridge took his children to stay with his mother in Lexington. In February, one month after Breckinridge's birth, the family moved with Governor John Adair to the Governor's Mansion in Frankfort, so his father could better attend to his duties as secretary of state. Having previously served as speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives, Breckinridge's father had been appointed Kentucky's secretary of state just prior to his son's birth. His mother was the daughter of Samuel Stanhope Smith, who founded Hampden–Sydney College in 1775, and granddaughter of John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The fourth of six children born to Joseph "Cabell" Breckinridge and Mary Clay (Smith) Breckinridge, he was their only son. John Cabell Breckinridge was born at Thorn Hill, his family's estate near Lexington, Kentucky, on January 16, 1821. Though well liked in Kentucky and other Southern states, he was reviled by many in the North as a traitor. Breckinridge is regarded as an effective military commander. War injuries sapped his health, and he died in 1875. When President Andrew Johnson extended amnesty to all former Confederates in 1868, Breckinridge returned to Kentucky, but resisted all encouragement to resume his political career. He then escaped the country and lived abroad for more than three years. After the fall of Richmond, Breckinridge ensured the preservation of Confederate records. Concluding that the war was hopeless, he urged Davis to arrange a national surrender. In February 1865, Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed him secretary of war. After participating in Jubal Early's campaigns in the Shenandoah Valley, Breckinridge was charged with defending supplies in Tennessee and Virginia. After Bragg charged that Breckinridge's drunkenness had contributed to defeats at Stones River and Missionary Ridge, and after Breckinridge joined many other high-ranking officers in criticizing Bragg, he was transferred to the Trans-Allegheny Department, where he won his most significant victory in the 1864 Battle of New Market. Following the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, he was promoted to major general, and in October, he was assigned to the Army of Mississippi under Braxton Bragg. He was commissioned a brigadier general and then expelled from the Senate. Unionists were in control of the state legislature, and gained more support when Confederate forces moved into Kentucky.īreckinridge fled behind Confederate lines. Taking his seat in the Senate, Breckinridge urged compromise to preserve the Union. Breckinridge carried most of the Southern states. These three men split the Southern vote, while antislavery Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln won all but three electoral votes in the North, allowing him to win the election. A third party, the Constitutional Union Party, nominated John Bell. Crittenden at the end of Crittenden's term in 1861.Īfter Southern Democrats walked out of the 1860 Democratic National Convention, the party's northern and southern factions held rival conventions in Baltimore that nominated Douglas and Breckinridge, respectively, for president.
In 1859, he was elected to succeed Senator John J. He joined Buchanan in supporting the proslavery Lecompton Constitution for Kansas, which led to a split in the Democratic Party. The Democrats won the election, but Breckinridge had little influence with Buchanan, and as presiding officer of the Senate, could not express his opinions in debates. He was nominated for vice president at the 1856 Democratic National Convention to balance a ticket headed by James Buchanan. After reapportionment in 1854 made his re-election unlikely, he declined to run for another term. Douglas in support of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. House of Representatives in 1851, he allied with Stephen A. After serving as a noncombatant during the Mexican–American War, he was elected as a Democrat to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1849, where he took a states' rights position against interference with slavery. He was appointed Confederate Secretary of War in 1865.īreckinridge was born near Lexington, Kentucky, to a prominent local family. Senate during the outbreak of the American Civil War, but was expelled after joining the Confederate Army. He was a member of the Democratic Party, and ran for president in 1860 as a Southern Democrat. Serving from 1857 to 1861, he took office at the age of 36. He represented Kentucky in both houses of Congress and became the 14th and youngest-ever vice president of the United States. John Cabell Breckinridge (Janu– May 17, 1875) was an American lawyer, politician, and soldier.
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