Representative Reese Bowen Brabson

Reese Bowen Brabson (September 16, 1817 – August 16, 1863) was an American politician and lawyer who represented Tennessee’s 3rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1859 to 1861 and served one term in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1851 to 1852. Born at Brabson’s Ferry Plantation near Sevierville, Sevier County, Tennessee, he was a member of a prominent East Tennessee family whose plantation home on the French Broad River later became known as Brabson’s Ferry Plantation. This property, where he was raised, still stands near Sevierville and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, reflecting the longstanding regional presence and influence of the Brabson family.

Brabson pursued higher education at Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee, from which he graduated in 1840. After completing his collegiate studies, he read law in Dandridge, Tennessee, following the then-common practice of legal apprenticeship rather than formal law school. He was admitted to the bar in 1848 and soon thereafter commenced the practice of law in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In Chattanooga he entered into partnership with James A. Whiteside, a leading attorney and influential figure in the city’s early development, thereby establishing himself within the professional and civic life of a growing commercial center in East Tennessee.

Brabson’s involvement in public affairs began before his legislative service. In the presidential election of 1848, he served as a presidential elector for Whig candidate Zachary Taylor, aligning himself with the national Whig Party’s platform of Unionism and economic development. His first elective office came when he represented Hamilton County in the Tennessee House of Representatives during the 29th Tennessee General Assembly from 1851 to 1852. In that role he participated in the legislative process at the state level during a period of increasing sectional tension in the United States. In 1856 he sought a seat in the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee’s 3rd congressional district on the American Party, or Know Nothing, ticket, but was defeated by the incumbent, Samuel Axley Smith.

Brabson returned to the national political stage in the late 1850s as party alignments shifted in response to the growing crisis over slavery and the Union. He was elected as a member of the Opposition Party to the Thirty-sixth Congress, serving from March 4, 1859, to March 3, 1861, representing Tennessee’s 3rd district. The Opposition Party in Tennessee was a successor to the collapsing Whig Party and drew support from Unionist and anti-Democratic elements in the state. As a member of the Independent and Opposition political currents, Brabson contributed to the legislative process during his single term in Congress, participating in debates and votes during a critical period in American history on the eve of the Civil War and representing the interests of his East Tennessee constituents. He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1860. During the presidential campaign of 1860, he actively canvassed in support of John Bell, the Constitutional Union Party candidate, whose platform emphasized preservation of the Union and avoidance of sectional conflict.

Although a slaveholder, Brabson firmly opposed secession as the sectional crisis deepened. When Tennessee seceded from the Union in June 1861, he returned to his residence in Chattanooga and refused to take up arms for either the Union or the Confederacy, despite being offered commissions by both sides. He thus took no active part in the Civil War in a military capacity, maintaining a stance consistent with his earlier Unionist and Constitutional Union sympathies. He continued to practice law during the conflict and, in one of the most notable episodes of his legal career, defended James J. Andrews, a Union operative who faced court-martial by Confederate authorities for leading the 1862 raid later known as the Great Locomotive Chase. At the same time, Brabson extended humanitarian assistance to Confederate soldiers by opening his home in early 1863 to wounded Confederate casualties following the Battle of Stones River, reflecting his personal commitment to aiding the suffering of both sides despite his political opposition to secession.

In his private life, Brabson married Sarah Maria Keith, the daughter of Judge Charles F. Keith and Elizabeth D. (Hale) Keith of McMinn County, Tennessee. The couple had six children: John Bowen, Ada Elizabeth, Maria Marshall, Catherine Douglass, Mary, and Rose. Through his extended family connections, Brabson was the uncle of Charles K. Bell, who later served as a U.S. Representative from Texas, indicating the broader political engagement of the Brabson and Keith families beyond Tennessee. His residence in Chattanooga, though extensively altered over time, still stands on East Fifth Street and remains a tangible link to his life and career in that city.

Reese Bowen Brabson died of typhoid fever on August 16, 1863, in the midst of the Civil War that he had sought to avert and from which he had tried to remain personally detached in a military sense. He was interred in Citizens Cemetery in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His life and career, spanning antebellum politics, the fracturing of the national party system, and the early years of the Civil War, illustrate the complex position of East Tennessee Unionists who were slaveholders yet opposed secession and attempted, often at personal and political cost, to navigate a middle course in a deeply divided nation.