Adelbert AMES, Congress, MS (1835-1933)

AMES, Adelbert, (father of Butler Ames and son-in-law of Benjamin Franklin Butler), a Senator from Mississippi; born in Rockland, Knox County, Maine, October 31, 1835; attended the common schools; graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1861; during the Civil War served with the Union Army from 1861 to 1865 as lieutenant, colonel, and brigadier general; breveted colonel; received the Congressional Medal of Honor for gallantry at the Battle of Bull Run; captain in the Fifth Artillery of the Regular Army 1864-1866; lieutenant colonel of the Twenty-fourth United States Infantry from 1866 until 1870, when he resigned; appointed Provisional Governor of Mississippi on March 15, 1868; appointed to the command of the fourth military district (Department of Mississippi) March 17, 1869; upon the readmission of the State of Mississippi to representation was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate, and served from February 23, 1870, until January 10, 1874, when he resigned, having been elected Governor in 1873; chairman, Committee on Enrolled Bills (Fifty-third Congress); Governor of Mississippi from January 4, 1874, until March 29, 1876, when he resigned; moved to New York City and later to Lowell, Mass.; engaged in the flour business, with mills in Minnesota; also interested in various manufacturing industries in Lowell; was appointed brigadier general of Volunteers in the war with Spain 1898-1899; discontinued active business pursuits and lived in retirement in Lowell, Mass.; died at his winter home in Ormond, Fla., April 12, 1933; interment in Hildreth Cemetery, Lowell, Mass.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Ames, Blanche. Adelbert Ames, 1835-1933, General, Senator, Governor. North Easton, Mass.: Argosy Antiquarian, 1964; Kirshner, Ralph. The Class of 1861: Custer, Ames, and Their Classmates after West Point. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present