biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1788–1858)
|
| biography:
| US soldier, businessman, and diplomat, born in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. The grandson of Christopher Gadsden, he studied at Yale (1806), and served in the War of 1812 and during conflicts with the Seminole Indians. He was president of the Louisville, Cincinnati, and Charleston Railroad (1840–50) (renamed the South Carolina Railroad in 1842) and was a major proponent of a southern route from the E USA to the Pacific. While US ambassador to Mexico (1853–6), he was authorized to purchase a huge section of N Mexico in order to provide for a direct southern route. He succeeded in buying a smaller tract of land for $10 million, known as the Gadsden Purchase (1853). |
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