Legrand Winfield PERCE, Congress, MS (1836-1911)

PERCE Legrand Winfield , a Representative from Mississippi; born in Buffalo, N.Y., June 19, 1836; completed preparatory studies; attended Wesleyan College, Lima, N.Y., and was graduated from the Albany (N.Y.) Law School in 1857; was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Buffalo, N.Y.; enlisted in the Union Army in April 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War; was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Sixth Regiment, Michigan Volunteer Infantry, in August 1861; promoted to the rank of captain in June 1862; appointed captain in the United States Volunteers in August 1863 and was brevetted lieutenant colonel and colonel in 1865; settled in Natchez, Miss.; appointed register in bankruptcy in June 1867; upon readmission of the State of Mississippi to representation was elected as a Republican to the Forty-first Congress; reelected to the Forty-second Congress and served from February 23, 1870, to March 3, 1873; chairman, Committee on Education and Labor (Forty-second Congress); was not a candidate for reelection in 1872; engaged in the practice of law and also in the real estate business at Chicago, Ill., where he died March 16, 1911; interment in Rose Hill Cemetery.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present