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Kentucky's Civil War Leaders
Preston tried in vain to persuade state
into joining movement for secession
(EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 10th in a series about Kentucky officers and battle leaders during the Civil War.)
By PHILLIP SEYFRIT
Bugle Staff Writer
Confederate Brig. Gen. William Preston - military officer, legislator, congressman and diplomat – was a distinguished attorney in his native Louisville who used his considerable influence in trying to persuade Kentucky into secession during the Civil War.
Educated in Kentucky and at Harvard, earning a law degree from the latter in 1838, Preston was appointed Lt. Colonel of the 4th Kentucky at the beginning of the Mexican War. He was elected to both houses of the Kentucky legislature in the 1840s and 50s and represented Kentucky in the U.S. Congress. He then was appointed minister to Spain by President James Buchanan in 1858.
Preston served on the staff of his brother-in-law, Albert Sidney Johnston, with the rank of colonel until Johnston's death at the Battle of Shiloh. The Louisvillian then became a brigadier general in 1862 and participated in the battles of Corinth (Miss.), Murfreesboro and Chickamauga.
In 1864, Preston was appointed Confederate Minister to Mexico, but was unable to reach that nation, spending the last months of the war in the Trans-Mississippi Department. He traveled to Mexico right after the war, returning to Kentucky in 1866 after visiting England and Canada. He was re-elected to the Kentucky legislature and was active in the Democrat Party.
Preston died in 1887 in Lexington at age 70 and is buried in Louisville.
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