Benjamin Gratz Brown (28 May 1826 – 13 December 1885) was a US Senator from Missouri (U) from 13 November 1863 to 3 March 1867 (succeeding Robert Wilson and preceding Charles D. Drake) and Governor of Missouri from 4 January 1871 to 3 January 1873 (succeeding Joseph W. McClurg and preceding Silas Woodson).
Biography[]
Benjamin Gratz Brown was born in Frankfort, Kentucky in 1826, the grandson of US Senators John Brown and Jesse Bledsoe. He later settled in St. Louis, Missouri, and he joined his cousin Francis Preston Blair Jr. and Senator Thomas Hart Benton in a struggle against the pro-slavery faction for control of the state's Democratic Party. He was a Republican from 1854 to 1860, when he became a Unionist, and he returned to the Republicans in 1866. He resigned from the Senate in 1867, and he went on to serve as Governor from 1871 to 1873. Brown later returned to practicing law, and he also returned to being a Democrat. He died in 1885.