Edmund G. (Edmund Gibson) Ross

Born in Ohio in 1826, Edmund Gibson Ross learned the printer’s trade as a boy and built a career in newspapers before moving west. In the 1850s he settled in Kansas, where he became active in the free-state movement and edited antislavery papers during one of the most turbulent periods in the territory’s history.

During the Civil War, Ross served in the Union Army and rose from private to major. After the war he entered national politics, representing Kansas in the U.S. Senate from 1866 to 1871. He is most often remembered for his dramatic vote against convicting President Andrew Johnson at the impeachment trial, a decision that cost him politically but later made him a symbol of political independence for many readers of American history.

Ross later moved to New Mexico, where he served as territorial governor from 1885 to 1889. He died in Albuquerque in 1907, leaving behind a life that connected journalism, the Civil War, Reconstruction politics, and the American West.