Benjamin Gwinn HARRIS, Congress, MD (1805-1895)
HARRIS, Benjamin Gwinn, a Representative from Maryland; born near Leonardtown, St. Marys County, Md., December 13, 1805; attended Yale College and Cambridge (Mass.) Law School; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1840; member of the State house of delegates in 1833 and 1836; elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses (March 4, 1863-March 3, 1867); censured by the House of Representatives on April 9, 1864, for treasonable utterances; was tried by a military court in Washington, D.C., in May 1865 for harboring two paroled Confederate soldiers, and sentenced to three years imprisonment and forever disqualified from holding any office under the United States Government, but President Andrew Johnson subsequently remitted the sentence; died on his estate, âEllenborough,â near Leonardtown, Md., April 4, 1895; interment in the family burying ground on his estate.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
