Biography:

Bristow was a lawyer, the first Solicitor General of the United States, and the 30th US Secretary of the Treasury.  He was born in Kentucky on June 20, 1832, and graduated from Jefferson College in Pennsylvania in 1851.  He fought as a Union Soldier in the Civil War, was seriously wounded at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, became the lieutenant colonel of the 8th Kentucky Calvary, and assisted in the 1863 capture of the Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan.  On September 23, 1863 Bristow received an honorable discharge from the Union Army because he was selected to serve in the Kentucky senate.   Bristow was unaware that he had been elected and served only one term, until 1865.  One year later he became the US Attorney for the Kentucky District where he vigorously defended the Civil Rights Act of 1866.  From 1870-1872 he served as the first Solicitor General of the United States.  During his service, he argued issues related to Reconstruction and prosecuted thousands of Ku Klux Klan members.  In 1874, he became the United States Secretary of the Treasury and helped prosecute the Whisky Ring.  Following his resignation in 1876, he returned to New York to practice law and was later elected the second president of the American Bar Association.  He died in New York in 1896.