2-365-463 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

John Cabell Breckinridge, American politician, c1860s (1955). Before the Civil War Breckinridge (1821-1875) served as a US Senator representing Kentucky, then as the 14th Vice-President of the United States, the youngest holder of that office. He ran, unsuccessfully, for President in the 1860 election. After serving as a general in both the western and eastern theatres in the Civil War, he was appointed Conferate Secretary of War in 1865, a post he held until the conflict ended. Fearing charges of treason he fled into exile, but returned to the US in 1869 after being granted an amnesty. A print from Mathew Brady Historian with a Camera by James D Horan, Bonanza Books, New York, 1955.