John C . Brown John Calvin Brown ( January 6 , 1827August 17 , 1889 ) was an American politician , soldier and businessman . He served as Governor of Tennessee from 1871 to 1875 , and was president of the state ' s 1870 constitutional convention , which wrote the current Tennessee State Constitution . Although he originally opposed secession , Brown fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War , eventually rising to the rank of major general . A leader of the state ' s Bourbon Democrat s , Brown dedicated much of his time as governor to solving the state ' s mounting debt issues . Following his gubernatorial tenure , he advocated railroad construction , briefly serving as president of the Texas & Pacific Railroad in 1888 , and as president of the Tennessee Coal , Iron and Railroad Company in 1889 . Early life . Brown was born in Giles County , Tennessee , the son of Duncan and Margaret Smith Brown . He was the younger brother of Neill S . Brown , who served as governor of Tennessee in the late 1840s . John graduated from Jackson College in Columbia , Tennessee , in 1846 . He studied law with his uncle , Hugh Brown , in Spring Hill , and was admitted to the bar in 1848 . He began practicing law in Pulaski that same year . Like his brother , Brown was a Whig prior to the Civil War , and following the Whig Party ' s collapse in the mid - 1850s , he continued to support former Whig candidates . During the presidential election of 1860 , he served as an elector for the Constitution Union Party candidate John Bell , who opposed secession , and took a neutral stance on the issue of slavery . In the weeks following the Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861 , however , secessionist sentiment swept across Middle Tennessee , and Brown , along with his brother and , eventually , John Bell , switched sides and supported the burgeoning Confederacy . Civil War . In May 1861 , Brown enlisted as a private in the Confederate infantry , and was elected Colonel of the 3rd Tennessee Infantry shortly afterward . He was later placed in charge of a brigade consisting of three Tennessee regiment s . Following the surrender of Fort Donelson , he was held as a prisoner of war for six months in Fort Warren , Massachusetts , before being exchanged in August 1862 . Soon afterwards , he was promoted to brigadier general by the Confederate War Department and assigned command of a new and larger brigade composed of troops from Florida and Mississippi . He took part in Braxton Bragg ' s campaigns in Kentucky and Tennessee in late 1862 through 1863 . Brown was wounded in the battles of Perryville and Chickamauga while leading his brigade . His men were a part of the defensive line on Missionary Ridge in 1863 . In 1864 , Brown fought in the Atlanta Campaign , at various times temporarily commanding a division . In August , he was promoted to major general and formally assigned command of a division in Benjamin F . Cheatham ' s Corps . He was again wounded at Battle of Franklin in 1864 , where six of his fellow generals were killed . He was incapacitated for several months and did not rejoin the army until the end of the Carolinas Campaign in April 1865 . He surrendered with Joseph E . Johnston ' s forces at Bennett Place and was paroled a month later . Governor . Brown returned to Pulaski and resumed his law practice following the war . He was elected to the Tennessee General Assembly in 1869 . In the following year , he was a delegate to the state , and was elected its president by his peers . This convention overhauled the state ' s 1834 constitution , essentially updating it to meet post - Civil War demands . The document most notably guaranteed the right to vote to all males of at least 21 years of age , regardless of race , but also instituted a poll tax . Although it has been amended a number of times , it remains Tennessee ' s current state constitution . Although he had been a Whig before the Civil War , Brown joined the Democratic Party after the war , and was nominated as the party ' s candidate for governor in 1870 . Since the new constitution restored voting rights to ex - Confederates , Brown easily defeated his Republican opponent , William H . Wisener of Shelbyville , by a 78 , 979 to 41 , 400 vote . He was reelected by a similar margin over Republican candidate Alfred Freeman in 1872 . Brown ' s most pressing issue was the state ' s skyrocketing debt . In previous decades , Tennessee had accumulated $ 43 million in bonded debt , mostly to pay for internal improvements , such as turnpike construction and loans to railroads . Governor William Brownlow exacerbated the problem by issuing more bonds to pay the interest on outstanding bonds in the late 1860s . By the time Brown took office , the state was struggling to pay the interest on this debt . Brown managed to reduce the state ' s bonded debt to $ 20 million , and eliminated all of the state ' s floating debt . His efforts proved futile , however , and the state eventually defaulted following the Panic of 1873 . Brown ' s administration enacted the state ' s first truly effective public school legislation , which called for the establishment of county and city school superintendents , and the creation of the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction . Brown also advocated a board of directors to govern local school districts , and the organization of separate schools for African - American and white children . To support these schools , Governor Brown called for the $ 3 to institute a small state tax and give cities and counties the power to raise additional taxes . In 1875 , along with several other former Confederate generals , he competed for an open United States Senate seat , but lost on the 54th ballot in the state legislature to former President Andrew Johnson . Later life . In 1876 , Brown , who supported Thomas A . Scott ' s efforts to build a transcontinental railroad in the South , joined the Texas & Pacific Railroad as a vice president . He was appointed receiver of this railroad in 1885 , and was elevated to president in 1888 . The following year , he became president of the Tennessee Coal , Iron and Railroad Company , which was one of the largest industrial firms in the South . Brown also served as president of the Bon Air Coal Company , a coal mining operation on the Cumberland Plateau near Crossville , in the 1880s . Brown fell ill in the Summer of 1889 , and traveled to Red Boiling Springs , a mineral springs resort in north - central Tennessee , in hopes of recovering . On August 17 , 1889 , however , he suffered a stomach hemorrhage and died . His body was returned to Pulaski and interred in the city ' s Maplewood Cemetery . Family . Brown ' s first wife , Anne Pointer , died in 1858 . They had no children . He married his second wife , Elizabeth Childress of Murfreesboro , in 1864 . They had four children : Marie , Daisy , Elizabeth , and John C . Brown , Jr . Brown ' s wife , Elizabeth , was among the women featured in Annie Somers Gilchrist ' s 1902 book , " Some Representative Women of Tennessee " . The Browns ' daughter , Marie , was married to Governor Benton McMillin .