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Senate Years of Service: 1862-1863; 1863-1865; 1865-1869 Party: Unionist; Unconditional Unionist; Republican
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State Historical Society of Missouri
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HENDERSON, John Brooks, a Senator from Missouri; born near Danville, Pittsylvania County, Va., November
16, 1826; moved with his parents to Lincoln County, Mo.; studied on his own while a farm hand;
taught school; admitted to the bar in 1844 and practiced; member, State house of representatives
1848-1850, 1856-1858; active in Democratic politics; commissioned a brigadier general in the State
militia in 1861; appointed and subsequently elected to the United States Senate as a Unionist to fill the
vacancy caused by the expulsion of Trusten Polk; reelected in 1863 and served from January 17,
1862, to March 3, 1869; was not a candidate for reelection; chairman, Committee to Audit and
Control the Contingent Expense (Thirty-ninth Congress), Committee on Indian Affairs (Thirty-ninth
and Fortieth Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for Governor and Senator; special United States
attorney for prosecution of the Whiskey Ring at St. Louis in 1875; appointed a commissioner to treat
with hostile tribes of Indians in 1877; moved to Washington, D.C., in 1888; writer; resided in the
capital until his death, April 12, 1913; interment in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, N.Y.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Mattingly, Arthur H. Senator John Brooks Henderson,
United States Senator from Missouri. Ph.D. dissertation, Kansas State University, 1971; Roske,
Ralph J. The Seven Martyrs? American Historical Review 64 (January 1959):
323-30.
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