Francis Preston Blair , Jr . Francis Preston Blair , Jr . ( February 19 , 1821July 8 , 1875 ) was an American politician and Union Army general during the American Civil War . He represented Missouri in both the House of Representatives and the Senate , and he was the Democratic Party ' s nominee for in 1868 . Early life and career . Blair was born in Lexington , Kentucky . He was the son of Francis Preston Blair and the brother of Montgomery Blair . He was also the cousin of B . Gratz Brown . He attended schools in Washington , D . C . , graduated from Princeton University in 1841 , and studied law at Transylvania University . After his admission to the bar in Lexington , he went on to practice in St . Louis in 1842 . Blair participated in the Mexican - American War and was appointed attorney general for the New Mexico Territory after it was secured by General Stephen W . Kearny . A personal and political friend of Thomas Hart Benton , he became known for his views opposing slavery . Blair served in the Missouri House of Representatives from 1852 to 1856 . He was an outspoken Free - Soil er and was elected as a Republican to the United States House of Representatives in 1856 . He was defeated in 1858 , but successfully contested the election and was finally seated on June 8 , 1860 , resigning on June 25 , 1860 . He was unsuccessful as a candidate in the special election to fill the vacancy caused by his own resignation , but was elected in 1860 to the 37th Congress , serving until his resignation in July 1862 to become a Colonel in the Union Army . He was subsequently elected in 1862 to the 38th Congress , but had to relinquish his seat on June 10 , 1864 , after Samuel Knox successfully contested his election . In Congress , he served as chairman of the important Military Affairs Committee . In the days following Lincoln ' s election , when it became evident that several southern states were advocating secession , Blair was among the leaders of a new political movement in Missouri , the Unconditional Union Party , which advocated the use of force , if necessary , to prevent Missouri from following suit . Civil War . Immediately after South Carolina ' s secession in December 1860 , Blair , believing that the southern leaders were planning to carry neutral Missouri into the movement , began active efforts to prevent it . He personally organized and equipped a force of several thousand Unionist " Home Guards " , drawn from the " Wide Awakes " - the Republican marching clubs of the 1860 campaign . When tensions rose , Blair and Captain ( later General ) Nathaniel Lyon suddenly transferred the arms in the U . S . Arsenal at St Louis to Alton , Illinois . On 10 May 1861 , Lyon , with the Home Guards and a U . S . regular Army company , captured several hundred state militia which had been positioned to seize the Arsenal . The Camp Jackson Affair gave the Federal cause a decisive initial advantage in Missouri but also inflamed secessionist sentiments in the state . Open warfare between Union forces and the followers of pro - Southern Missouri governor Claiborne Jackson was imminent . To avoid this , General William S . Harney , the Army commander in Missouri , agreed to the Price - Harney Truce with Missouri State Guard commander Sterling Price on 21 May . Blair objected , and contacted Republican leaders in Washington . Within a few weeks , Harney was replaced by Lyon as temporary commander . Lyon drove Jackson and Price to the southwestern corner of Missouri before he was killed at the Battle of Wilson ' s Creek , while Blair helped organize a new all - Unionist state government , and John C . Frémont took over as Army commander . Frémont was himself a prominent Republican with Missouri connections . Blair soon came to regard Frémont as a political rival , and they clashed over many aspects of Frémont ' s operations in Missouri . Frémont as the regional Army commander was responsible for spending a lot of money in a great hurry for supplies and equipment . Blair expected most of this money to go his allies in the St . Louis business community , but Frémont and his staff had their own ideas . Blair ' s bitter complaints , added to the waste and corruption , helped discredit Frémont , who was replaced on 2 November . Blair resigned from the House of Representatives in July 1862 , having been appointed a colonel of Missouri volunteers . He was promoted brigadier general of volunteers in August 1862 and then to major general in November . In Missouri , Blair commanded a brigade consisting of the 13th Illinois Infantry , the 29th , 30th , 31st , and 32nd Missouri Infantry , the 58th Ohio Infantry , 4th Company , Ohio Light Artillery , and Company C , 10th Missouri Cavalry . Blair subsequently commanded a division in the Vicksburg campaign and in the fighting about Chattanooga , and was one of William T . Sherman ' s corps commanders in the final campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas . His XVII Corps was engaged protecting the rear areas of Sherman ' s army until later in the Atlanta Campaign . Before it left on the March to the Sea , XVII Corps absorbed part of the detachment of XVI Corps that had served with Sherman . Postbellum activities . At the close of the war , Blair , having spent much of his private fortune in support of the Union , was financially ruined . In 1866 like his father and brother he opposed the Congressional Reconstruction policy , and on that issue left the Republican Party . He was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for vice president in 1868 , running with Horatio Seymour . Blair contributed to the Democratic defeat by going on a speaking tour in which he framed the contest with Ulysses S . Grant and the pro - Reconstruction Republicans in stark racist terms , warning of the rule of " a semi - barbarous race of blacks who are worshipers of fetishes and poligamists " and wanted to " subject the white women to their unbridled lust . " At least one Democratic Congressman saw Blair as the cause of Seymour ' s defeat , calling his behavior " stupid and indefensible . " Blair had an odd minor notoriety , when on July 29 , 1870 , he was an accidental witness to an incident in a famous homicide case . Staying at the then famous Fifth Avenue Hotel , facing West 23rd Street off Fifth Avenue , Blair woke up to cries of help from across the street . He watched from his hotel window as two men ran out of a brownstone mansion across the street . They were two of the sons of Benjamin Nathan , the Vice President of the New York Stock Exchange , who had been bludgeoned to death the previous night . There was a series of hearings , and even suspicion towards several people , but the mystery was never solved . In 1871 Blair was chosen by the Missouri Legislature as a United States Senator . On November 16 , 1872 , he was stricken down by paralysis , from which he never recovered . Largely owing to his stricken condition , he was defeated for reelection to the Senate in January 1873 . Blair learned to write painfully with his left hand and continued his political efforts . Blair ' s consuming interest in politics kept him active and a candidate for office until his death from a fall in 1875 . He is interred in Bellefontaine Cemetery . In 1899 , the state of Missouri donated a marble statue of Blair to the U . S . Capitol ' s National Statuary Hall Collection . A statue to Senator Blair was erected at the entrance to Forest Park in Saint Louis at the intersection of Kingshighway and Lindell Blvds . in 1885 .