William B. Campbell - Military and Political Career

Military and Political Career

In 1835, Campbell moved back to Carthage, and was elected to Smith County's seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives. He resigned his seat in 1836, however, in order to fight in the Second Seminole War. He served as a captain under Colonel William Trousdale.

In 1837, Campbell successfully ran against Trousdale for the state's 6th District seat in the United States House of Representatives. The campaign was "spirited," though there was no bitterness between the two candidates. In 1839, Campbell ran for reelection, again defeating Trousdale. He ran unopposed in 1841. Near the end of his third term in 1843 he resigned and returned to his law practice in Carthage. That same year, he was appointed major-general of the Tennessee militia.

Upon the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in 1846, Campbell answered Tennessee Governor Aaron V. Brown's call for volunteers. He was elected colonel of the First Regiment Tennessee Volunteers on June 3, 1846, and arrived with his regiment in Texas the following month. At the Battle of Monterrey later that year, this company lost one-third of its men in an assault on the town's citadel, earning the nickname, the "Bloody First." Campbell's company also saw action at the Siege of Veracruz and the Battle of Cerro Gordo in 1847.

After the war, Campbell was appointed by the legislature to a state circuit court judgeship. In 1851, he received the Whig nomination for governor. His opponent was William Trousdale, his old Seminole War superior, who had been elected in a close election in 1849. Trousdale had endorsed the Nashville Convention of 1850, in which southern states threatened to secede if the federal government attempted to ban slavery in newly-acquired territories, and blasted the Compromise of 1850, which admitted California as a free state. He accused Campbell of being "too favorable to northern views." Campbell on the other hand called the Compromise a "work of wisdom," and derided the Nashville Convention as treasonous. Running with the campaign slogan, "Boys, follow me!" which he had yelled at the Battle of Monterrey, Campbell edged Trousdale by a vote of 63,333 to 61,673.

As governor, Campbell called for a more rational approach to resolving sectional strife, and demanded an end to the "insane" talk of secession. After his initial term in 1853, he did not run for reelection, instead choosing to accept a position as President of the Bank of Middle Tennessee in Lebanon, Tennessee. The Whigs nominated Gustavus A. Henry, who was defeated by the Democratic candidate Andrew Johnson in the general election.