WILLIAM BREMAGE BATE
WILLIAM BREMAGE BATE, soldier, lawyer, governor and United States senator, was born near Castalian Springs, Sumner county, Tennessee, October 7, 1826, In his early youth he exhibited an adventurous spirit, and left school to accept a clerkship on a steamboat plying between Nashville and New Orleans. When war was declared against Mexico, in 1845, he promptly enlisted as private in a regiment recruited from Tennessee and Louisiana, and served throughout that conflict, attaining the rank of lieutenant. Upon returning to Tennessee, he became the editor and owner of a newspaper called the "Tenth Legion," published at Gallatin; and in 1849 he was elected to the legislature of that state. He then began the study of law in the Lebanon law school, from which he was graduated in 1852, and he settled down to practise law in Gallatin. His intellectual gifts and professional ability were not long in gaining recognition, and in 1854 he was elected attorney-general for the Nashville district for six years. While serving in the latter capacity, he so impressed himself upon the public mind that he received the unsolicited nomination for congress. This he declined, but he permitted his name to be put upon the Breckenridge-Lane electoral ticket in 1860.
In May, 1861, the state of Tennessee was forced to the issue of deciding for or against the policy of secession. The official negotiations resulted promptly in her union with the other Southern states for the purpose of "resisting the armed invasion of the North," and Mr. Bate entered the Confederate service as a private. His promotion to captain soon followed; and later he was made colonel of the 2d Tennessee regiment under the command of General Polk, and assigned to duty at Columbus, Kentucky. The first great battle in which he participated was that of Shiloh, where he coöperated in the work of Cleburne's brigade. Valiantly leading his regiment in the second charge under a withering cross-fire he fell, severely wounded, his leg struck by a minie ball, and he was compelled to retire from active service for a number of months. His gallantry in
