The Society of the Cincinnati is a fraternal, hereditary society founded in 1783 to commemorate the American Revolutionary War that saw the creation of the United States. Membership is largely restricted to descendants of military officers who served in the Continental Army.
Charles Sumner was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery. He chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1861 to 1871, until he lost the position following a dispute with President Ulysses S. Grant over the attempted annexation of Santo Domingo. After breaking with Grant, he joined the Liberal Republican Party. He spent his final two years in the Senate alienated from his party. Sumner had a controversial and divisive legacy for many years after his death, but in recent decades, his historical reputation has improved in recognition of his early support for racial equality.
Old money is "the inherited wealth of established upper-class families " or "a person, family, or lineage possessing inherited wealth". The term typically describes a social class of the rich who have been able to maintain their wealth over multiple generations, often referring to perceived members of the de facto aristocracy in societies that historically lack an officially established aristocratic class.
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas.
George Frisbie Hoar was an American attorney and politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1877 to 1904. He belonged to an extended family that became politically prominent in 18th- and 19th-century New England.
William McKendree Gwin was an American medical doctor and politician who served in elected office in Mississippi and California. In California he shared the distinction, along with John C. Frémont, of being the state's first US senators. Before, during, and after the Civil War, Gwin was well known in California, Washington, D.C., and the Southern United States as a determined Confederate sympathizer.
Edwin Vose Sumner was a career United States Army officer who became a Union Army general and the oldest field commander of any Army Corps on either side during the American Civil War. His nicknames "Bull" or "Bull Head" came both from his great booming voice and a legend that a musket ball once bounced off his head.
Samuel Storrow Sumner (1842–1937) was a United States Army general who served during the Spanish–American War, Boxer Rebellion, and Philippine–American War.
Matthew Calbraith Butler was a Confederate soldier, an American military commander and attorney and politician from South Carolina. He served as a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, postbellum three-term United States Senator, and a major general in the United States Army during the Spanish–American War.
Frederick Cornwallis was a British clergy member who served as Archbishop of Canterbury after a career in the Church of England. He was born the seventh son of an aristocratic family.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts played a significant role in national events prior to and during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Massachusetts dominated the early antislavery movement during the 1830s, motivating activists across the nation. This, in turn, increased sectionalism in the North and South, one of the factors that led to the war. Politicians from Massachusetts, echoing the views of social activists, further increased national tensions. The state was dominated by the Republican Party and was also home to many Radical Republican leaders who promoted harsh treatment of slave owners and, later, the former civilian leaders of the Confederate States of America and the military officers in the Confederate States Army.
Samuel Prentiss was an associate justice and chief justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, a United States senator from Vermont and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Vermont.
Elijah Hayward was a lawyer in the U.S. State of Ohio who represented his county in the Ohio House of Representatives, sat on the Ohio Supreme Court for a short time, and was Commissioner of the General Land Office. He was a noted genealogist and historian.
The 1862–63 United States Senate elections were held on various dates in various states, occurring during the American Civil War. As these U.S. Senate elections were prior to the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, senators were chosen by state legislatures. Senators were elected over a wide range of time throughout 1862 and 1863, and a seat may have been filled months late or remained vacant due to legislative deadlock. In these elections, terms were up for the senators in Class 1.
Edwin Vose Sumner Jr. was a general in the United States Army. Born at Carlisle, Pennsylvania; he was the son of General Edwin Vose Sumner, one of the oldest generals to serve during the American Civil War.
The caning of Charles Sumner, or the Brooks–Sumner Affair, occurred on May 22, 1856, in the United States Senate chamber, when Representative Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a walking cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist Republican from Massachusetts. The attack was in retaliation for an invective-laden speech given by Sumner two days earlier in which he fiercely criticized slaveholders, including pro-slavery South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, a relative of Brooks. The beating nearly killed Sumner and contributed significantly to the country's polarization over the issue of slavery. It has been considered symbolic of the "breakdown of reasoned discourse" and willingness to resort to violence that eventually led to the Civil War.
Sumner is a surname. It originates from the English-language word that is spelt, in modern English, summoner, denoting a person who serves a summons. In Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, one of the characters is a summoner ; a Middle English spelling is Somonour. Other spellings include Sumpner, Somner, and Summoner. Among the notable people with this surname are the following:
Mary Mildred Williams was born into slavery in Virginia and became widely known as an example of a "white slave" in the years before the Civil War.
Charles Pinckney Sumner was an American attorney, abolitionist, and politician who served as Sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts from 1825 to 1838. He was an early proponent of racially integrated schools and shocked 19th-century Boston by opposing anti-miscegenation laws. His son was famed abolitionist and U.S. Senator Charles Sumner.
Sir Henry Chicheley was a lieutenant governor of Virginia Colony who also served as Acting Governor during multiple periods in the aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion. Having first visited the Virginia colony as a Royalist in exile, where he served in the House of Burgesses in violation of his probation, Lt. Gov. Chicheley wielded power during a period of sociopolitical turmoil and change, and later in his career was increasingly troubled by England's growing aggression and control over the colony.
