Benjamin Brown was born May 28, 1826, in Frankfort, Kentucky. As an adult, he moved to Missouri, where he joined his cousin, Francis P. Blair Jr., and Senator Thomas Hart Benton in the struggle against the pro-slavery faction for control of the Missouri Democratic Party. Elected to the Missouri House, he served from 1852 through 1858, but left the Democratic Party and became a founding member of the Missouri Republican Party.

During the first half of the Civil War, Brown recruited over 1,100 soldiers, many of them German-Americans from St. Louis. When the 4th U. S. Reserve Corps was formed, he was elected the regiment’s colonel. Brown resigned from the army in 1863 to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. While in the Senate, he opposed Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation because the measure did not free the slaves in Missouri and in other border states.

In the presidential election of 1864, Brown was a key figure in the movement to replace Lincoln with General John C. Fremont on the Republican ticket.

Brown was elected governor of Missouri in 1870, and served between 1871 and 1873; in 1872, he joined presidential candidate Horace Greeley as the Liberal Republican Party’s candidate for vice-president; the party lost the election to the Republicans and U. S. Grant. After the election, Brown returned to his law practice and the Democratic Party.
Brown died on December 13, 1885, in Kirkwood, Missouri.

Carte-deVisite by Unknown Photographer

Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 11495