Isham G. Harris
Isham Green Harris (February 10, 1818 — July 8, 1897) was an American politician. He served as governor of Tennessee from 1857 to 1862 and as a U.S. Senator from 1877 until his death.
Harris was born near Tullahoma, Tennessee. He was elected to the Tennessee State Senate in 1847, serving one term there and then two in the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1849 to 1853. A Democrat, he was his party's nominee for governor in 1857 and was elected, succeeding Andrew Johnson.
Perhaps rather surprisingly given the troubled and volatile nature of the times, he was re-elected twice, in 1859 and 1861. When President Abraham Lincoln declared that there was rebellion in the South in 1861 and asked for troops to help quell it, Harris refused to make the call, and none were provided. This helped push Tennessee to become the last state to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy.
The Confederate government had lost control of much of Tennessee, including the capital, Nashville, by early 1862. Apparently, when Harris learned that Lincoln had appointed Andrew Johnson as military governor of Tennessee, Harris, while not resigning formally, ceased to make any real effort to function as governor, serving as a staff officer in the Confederate Army, first for Albert Sidney Johnston and then for Joseph E. Johnston.
After the war he fled to Mexico and then England. Upon learning that only the highest-ranking officials of the Confederacy were being punished, and that it might be possible for all others to have their civil rights restored, he returned to Tennessee and was subsequently elected to four terms in the U.S. Senate, serving from 1877 until his death. From 1893 to 1895, Harris was president pro tempore of the Senate.
