Jeremiah McLain Rusk Jeremiah McLain Rusk ( June 17 , 1830November 21 , 1893 ) was a U . S . Representative , the 15th Governor of the U . S . state of Wisconsin from 1882 to 1889 and the U . S . Secretary of Agriculture from 1889 to 1893 . Biography . Rusk was born in Malta , Ohio . He was a member of the Republican Party . He began as a planter , then turned to innkeeping and finally to banking before the American Civil War . Rusk started his service with the Union Army during Civil War as major of the 25th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment on August 14 , 1862 . He was promoted to lieutenant colonel on September 16 , 1863 . He took command of the regiment on July 22 , 1864 when Colonel Milton Montgomery was wounded and captured at Decatur , Georgia during the Battle of Atlanta . He continued in command after Montgomery was exchanged because Montgomery was given command of the brigade to which the 25th Wisconsin Infantry was assigned . Rusk was wounded at Salkehatchie River , Georgia on January 20 , 1865 . Rusk was mustered out of the volunteers on June 7 , 1865 . He received an appointment as brevet colonel to rank from March 13 , 1865 , preliminary to his appointment as a brevet brigadier general of volunteers . On February 24 , 1866 , President Andrew Johnson nominated Rusk for appointment to the grade of brevet brigadier general of volunteers to rank from March 13 , 1865 , and the United States Senate confirmed the appointment on April 10 , 1866 . After the Civil War , he became a congressman in the United States House of Representatives . He was elected to the Forty - second United States Congress as the representative of Wisconsin ' s 6th congressional district serving from March 4 , 1871 to March 3 , 1873 . For the Forty - third Congress he redistricted and was elected as representative of Wisconsin ' s newly created 7th District . He was reelected to the Forty - fourth Congress as well serving from March 4 , 1873 to March 4 , 1877 . While in congress , he was chairman of Committee on Invalid Pensions ( Forty - third congress ) . After his terms in congress he ran as a Republican for Governor of Wisconsin , an election he won . His most noted act during his governorship was when he sent the National Guard into Milwaukee to keep the peace during the May Day Labor Strikes of 1886 . The strikers had shut down every business in the city except the North Chicago Rolling Mills in Bay View . The guardsmen ' s orders were that , if the strikers were to enter the Mills , they should shoot to kill . But when the captain received the order it had a different meaning : he ordered his men to pick out a man and shoot to kill when the order was given . This led to the Bay View Tragedy , in which a number of workers were killed ; Governor Rusk took most of the blame . In 1889 , after the end of his third term as governor , he accepted the new cabinet position of Secretary of Agriculture in the Benjamin Harrison administration . He lived , died and was buried in Viroqua , Wisconsin . The house he bought and lived in while Governor of Wisconsin , now known as the Old Executive Mansion , was used by the state as the official residence of the Governor for several decades and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places .