Jeremiah McLain Rusk

Jeremiah McLain Rusk (June 17, 1830 – November 21, 1893) was the 15th Governor of the U.S. state of Wisconsin from 1882 to 1889 and the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture from 1889 to 1893.

Biography

Rusk was born in Malta, Ohio.^[1] He was a member of the Republican Party. He began as a planter, then turned to innkeeping and finally to banking before the Civil War. During the war, he received a brevet appointment as a general and saw action with the 25th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry.^[2]

After the Civil War, he became a congressman in the United States House of Representatives.^[2] There, he was chairman of Committee on Invalid Pensions (forty-third congress). He then ran as a Republican for Governor of Wisconsin, an election he won.^[2] His most noted act during his governorship was when he sent the National Guard into Milwaukee to keep the peace during the May Day Labor Strikes of 1886. The strikers had shut down every business in the city except the North Chicago Rolling Mills in Bay View. The guardsmen's orders were that, if the strikers were to enter the Mills, they should shoot to kill. But when the captain received the order it had a different meaning: he ordered his men to pick out a man and shoot to kill when the order was given. This led to the Bay View Tragedy, in which a number of workers were killed; Governor Rusk took most of the blame.

In 1889, after the end of his third term as governor, he accepted the new cabinet position of Secretary of Agriculture in the Benjamin Harrison administration.^[2] He lived, died and was buried in Viroqua, Wisconsin.^[3]

See also

• List of American Civil War generals

References

External links

• Jeremiah McLain Rusk at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Retrieved on 2008-02-12
• "Jeremiah McLain Rusk". Find a Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=5995596. Retrieved 2008-02-12.