John Benton CALLIS, Congress, AL (1828-1898)

CALLIS, John Benton, a Representative from Alabama; born in Fayetteville, Cumberland County, N.C., January 3, 1828; moved to Tennessee in 1834 with his parents, who settled in Carroll County, and thence, in 1840, to Lancaster, Grant County, Wis.; attended the common schools; studied medicine for three years, but then abandoned its further study; went to Minnesota in 1849; moved to California in 1851 and engaged in mining and the mercantile business; went to Central America in 1853; returned to Lancaster, Wis., in the fall of that year and again engaged in mercantile pursuits; entered the Union Army as a lieutenant, and was promoted to captain in the Seventh Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, August 30, 1861; major January 5, 1863; appointed by President Lincoln military superintendent of the War Department at Washington, D.C., in 1864; promoted to lieutenant colonel February 11, 1865; settled in Huntsville, Ala., in 1865; resigned his commission in the Army on February 4, 1868; upon the readmission of the State of Alabama to representation was elected as a Republican to the Fortieth Congress and served from July 21, 1868, to March 3, 1869; was not a candidate for renomination in 1868; returned to Lancaster, Wis., and engaged in the real-estate business; member of the State assembly in 1874; retired from active pursuits; died in Lancaster, Wis., on September 24, 1898; interment in Hillside Cemetery.

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