Background
He was born at Bellefonte, Center County, being the son of Roland and Jean (Gregg) Curtin. The Curtins belonged to Scotch-Irish stock. Roland emigrated from Dysert, County Clare, and settled in Bellefonte in 1800.
( An associate of Abraham Lincoln offers an intimate view...)
An associate of Abraham Lincoln offers an intimate view of the president’s relations with military men and top politicians, placing particular emphasis on the election campaigns of 1860 and 1864. A. K. McClure, a Republican powerbroker and later editor of the Philadelphia Times, reveals how Lincoln replaced Vice President Hannibal Hamlin with the southern Democrat Andrew Johnson on the 1864 ticket. According to McClure, Lincoln kept his hand hidden in order not to offend Hamlin and his New England supporters. In 1892, the publication of Abraham Lincoln and Men of War-Times caused an angry exchange of letters (included in this edition) between McClure and the late president’s secretary, John G. Nicolay. For all his nobility, Lincoln was a shrewd and cautious politician, running scared for reelection until major Union army victories in September 1864. McClure writes candidly about William T. Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant, and George B. McClellan. Among the politicians discussed are Lincoln’s predecessor, James Buchanan, who fixed the Southern policy that Lincoln followed until war came; Salmon P. Chase, the annoyingly ambitious secretary of the treasury; Edwin M. Stanton, the moody secretary of war; and Thaddeus Stevens, the ferocious congressman whose relations with Lincoln were uneasy at best.
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governor lawyer politician statesman
He was born at Bellefonte, Center County, being the son of Roland and Jean (Gregg) Curtin. The Curtins belonged to Scotch-Irish stock. Roland emigrated from Dysert, County Clare, and settled in Bellefonte in 1800.
Andrew Gregg Curtin was first taught in his native village by a Mr. Brown, a man of culture who had a school of about a dozen boys. Thence he went to Harrisburg Academy and later to Milton Academy, Pennsylvania, where under the Rev. David Kirkpatrick, he was well grounded in mathematics and the classics. With this preparation, he turned to the study of law.
At first with W. W. Potter of Bellefonte and then under Judge John Reed at the Law School of Dickinson College, he was initiated into his profession and, in 1839, was admitted to the bar in Center County, becoming, soon after, a partner of John Blanchard, a lawyer of good repute who was later elected to Congress.
Of commanding presence and genial manner, gifted with wit and power of speech, Curtin became highly effective both before judges and juries. He won early success as a public speaker.
In 1840, at the age of twenty-five, he appeared on behalf of Gen. Harrison's candidacy for the presidency; in 1844 he was enlisted in support of Henry Clay; in 1848, he canvassed the state for Gen. Zachary Taylor, the Whig candidate for the presidency; and in 1852 he took the field for Gen. Winfield Scott.
In 1854, he was offered the nomination for governor but refused, and supported James Pollock who was elected and promptly appointed Curtin secretary of the commonwealth and also ex-officio superintendent of common schools. In this post Curtin secured an enlarged appropriation for public schools and pushed a bill through the legislature authorizing the establishment of state normal schools, acts which increased his popularity and made probable his succession to the governor's chair. The state election of 1860, often called "The Battle of 1860" aroused the keenest interest because of the national issues involved and because Lincoln looked especially to Curtin of Pennsylvania and Henry S. Lane of Indiana to swing the balance in these pivotal states to his side. Both were victorious: Lane won in Indiana, and Curtin, stoutly aided by A. K. McClure, chairman of the state committee, won in Pennsylvania by a majority of 32, 000, which was interpreted as making the election of Lincoln secure. Curtin's inaugural address, delivered on January 15, 1861, produced wide-spread effects. In it he proclaimed the unswerving loyalty of Pennsylvania to the Union. "The people mean to preserve the integrity of the National Union at every hazard, " he declared. He was the first of the governors to be summoned to Washington by Lincoln.
After a consultation with the President on April 8, 1861, he returned to Pennsylvania, won the overwhelming support of the legislature, and aroused so strong a spirit of loyalty among the people that double the state quota of 14, 000 men was raised. Appreciating the magnitude and seriousness of the struggle then beginning, he obtained authority from the legislature to equip and maintain the extra force at the state's expense. Thus he fathered the famous Pennsylvania Reserve Corps which enabled the state to meet acute emergencies during the succeeding year. To inspire patriotic feeling he obtained funds from the Society of the Cincinnati of Pennsylvania for the purchase of regimental flags which he presented to the regiments as they were formed and which were afterward carried through scores of bloody engagements.
His guardianship extended to caring for them in hospital and to bringing their bodies back for burial. Nor did it stop there, but went out to their dependents. In 1863, he obtained from the legislature a fund for the support and schooling of the war orphans. The popular response to his devotion was evident in the election of 1863, when the vote of the soldiers and their friends made him by a great majority again governor.
In 1868, he was one of the candidates for second place on the ticket with Grant, an honor which went to Schuyler Colfax. In 1869, President Grant appointed him minister to Russia. He filled the post with credit and on his return in 1872 was chosen delegat-eat-large to the constitutional convention. His support of Greeley in the campaign of 1872 estranged his Republican friends, and he subsequently joined the Democratic party. In 1878, he ran for Congress on the Democratic ticket and was defeated. Two years later he ran again, was elected and served three consecutive terms until his retirement in March 1887.
He lived quietly the remaining years of his life in his mountain home, surrounded by his family and friends, and died, after a severe attack of illness, on October 7, 1894.
( An associate of Abraham Lincoln offers an intimate view...)
With the collapse of the Whigs, Curtin switched to the newly formed Republican Party and successfully ran for governor of Pennsylvania in 1860.
His support of Greeley in the campaign of 1872 estranged his Republican friends, and he subsequently joined the Democratic party.
He was a member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 20th district.
On May 30, 1844, Curtin married Catherine Irvine Wilson, daughter of Dr. Irvine Wilson and Mary Patten Wilson.