1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Washburn, Cadwallader Colden

20699391911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 28 — Washburn, Cadwallader Colden

WASHBURN, CADWALLADER COLDEN (1818–1882), American soldier and politician, was born at Livermore, Maine, on the 22nd of April 1818. He was admitted to the bar in 1842, and removed to Mineral Point, Wisconsin, where he practised law, speculated in land and engaged in banking. He became prominent in the Republican party, and was a member (1855–1861) of the U.S . House of Representatives, of which his brother Israel (1813–1883) was a member from Maine in 1851–1861; his brother Elihu Benjamin (see below) changed the spelling of the family surname to Washburne. At the beginning of the Civil War he became colonel of the Second Wisconsin Cavalry, was promoted to brigadier-general on the 16th of July 1862 and to major-general on the 29th of November 1862, and assisted in the capture of Vicksburg (4th July 1863), after which he served in Texas and West Tennessee. Resigning from the army in 1865, he became extensively interested in flour-milling and lumbering in Wisconsin. From 1867 to 1871 he was again a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and subsequently served one term (1872–1874) as governor of Wisconsin.