biography
| name: |
Bristow, Benjamin Helm
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1832–96)
|
| biography:
| Lawyer and public official, born in Elkton, Kentucky, USA. The son of a lawyer, he worked for a time for his father, then commanded Kentucky Union troops during the Civil War. As a postwar US attorney for Kentucky, he helped suppress moonshiners and Ku Klux Klan activity. He served as treasury secretary to President Ulysses S Grant (1874) and smashed the notorious Whiskey Ring, but some of the distillers were Grant supporters and turned the president against Bristow. Forced from office (1876), he returned to private practice and became president of the American Bar Association (1879). |
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