William Gannaway Brownlow (29 August 1805-29 April 1877) was the Republican Governor of Tennessee from 5 April 1865 to 25 February 1869 (succeeding Andrew Johnson and preceding Dewitt Clinton Senter) and a US Senator from 4 March 1869 to 3 March 1875 (succeeding David T. Patterson and preceding Andrew Johnson).
Biography[]
William Gannaway Brownlow was born in Wythe County, Virginia in 1805, and he was raised in Abingdon. He became a Methodist minister and circuit rider, and he married a Tennessee woman and settled in Elizabethton, Carter County. Brownlow became a newspaper editor and supported Whig policies such as a national bank, internal improvements, developed industries, and a weakened presidency; he was a staunch supporter of Henry Clay. Originally an abolitionist, he became a passionate defender of slavery before the American Civil War, and he joined the Know Nothings because he shared the movement's anti-Catholic and nativist sentiments. During the Civil War, he served as Governor from 1865 to 1869, pursuing autocratic and progressive policies (such as enfranchising African-American freedmen) as a Radical Republican, and overseeing its readmission to the Union. He then served as a US Senator from 1869 to 1875, and he died in 1877.