William Brimage Bate (October 7, 1826March 9, 1905) was a planter and slaveholder, Confederate officer, and politician in Tennessee. After the Reconstruction era, he served as the 23rd governor of Tennessee from 1883 to 1887. He was elected to the United States Senate from Tennessee, serving from 1887 until his death.

During the Civil War, he had fought for the Confederacy, eventually rising to the rank of major general and commanding a division in the Army of Tennessee. Bate saw action in multiple engagements throughout the war, and was seriously wounded on two occasions.

Early life and career

Bate was born in Bledsoe's Lick (now Castalian Springs) in Sumner County, Tennessee, the son of James H. Bate and the former Amanda Weatherred. He attended a log schoolhouse known as the "Rural Academy". When he was 15, his father died, and he left home to find work. He was eventually hired as a clerk on the steamboat, Saladin, which traveled up and down the Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers between Nashville and New Orleans.

After the war, Bate returned to his family farm in Sumner County, and established a pro-Democratic Party newspaper, the Tenth Legion, in nearby Gallatin. He was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1849. In 1852, he obtained his law degree from Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee and was admitted to the bar. After the state constitution was amended to allow for direct election of judicial officers in 1854, Bate was elected attorney general for the Nashville district. He was offered his district's nomination for Congress in 1859, but declined. He was a staunch supporter of secession in the years leading up to the Civil War. Several of Bate's relatives were killed at Shiloh, and his horse was shot out from under him.

Bate rejoined his division in time to take part in General John B. Hood's invasion of Tennessee in late 1864. At the Battle of Franklin on November 30, he lost nearly 20% of his division, and his horse was again shot out from under him. He remained active in politics, serving on the State Democratic Committee and the National Democratic Executive Committee in the late 1860s.

Bate's paternal grandfather, Colonel Humphrey Bate (1779–1856), was an early settler in Sumner County. Governor Bate's middle name was the surname of his paternal grandmother (Colonel Humphrey Bate's first wife), Elizabeth Brimage.

Further reading

  • Chesney, William N. "The Public Career of William B. Bate." Master's thesis, University of Tennessee, 1951.

See also

  • List of American Civil War generals (Confederate)
  • List of governors of Tennessee
  • List of members of the United States Congress who died in office (1900–1949)

References

  • Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, .
  • U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion : a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880–1901.
  • Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders, Louisiana State University Press, 1959, .
  • Welsh, Jack D., Medical Histories of Confederate Generals, Kent State University Press, 1999, .

Notes

  • William Brimage Bate – entry in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
  • William Brimage Bate – National Governors Association entry
  • William Brimage Bate, late a senator from Tennessee, Memorial addresses delivered in the House of Representatives and Senate frontispiece 1907
  • Governor William Brimage Bate Papers, 1883 - 1887, Tennessee State Library and Archives.

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