Thomas Ward Osborn (9 March 1833 – 18 December 1898) was a Republican US Senator from Florida from 25 June 1868 to 4 March 1873, succeeding David Levy Yulee and preceding Simon B. Conover.
Biography[]
Thomas Ward Osborn was born in Scotch Plains, New Jersey in 1833, and he was raised in Wilna, New York before working at a law office in Watertown. When the American Civil War broke out, he enlisted in the Union Army as a lieutenant, commanding O.O. Howard's XI Corps' artillery brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg. After the war, he worked for the Freedmen's Bureau in Florida, practicing law in Tallahassee and serving as a Republican US Senator from 1868 to 1873. He helped pass legislation to create the Washington Monument in Washington DC, and, after his retirement, he moved to New York City, where he died in 1898.