Background
Ballentine was born on May 20, 1825 in Pulaski, Tennessee in Giles County son of Andrew Mitchell and Mary Tuttle Goff Ballentine.
United States representative politician
Ballentine was born on May 20, 1825 in Pulaski, Tennessee in Giles County son of Andrew Mitchell and Mary Tuttle Goff Ballentine.
He graduated from Wurtemberg Academy in 1841, from the University of Nashville in 1845, and from the law department of Harvard University in 1848.
He commenced the practice of law in Pulaski. Ballentine moved to Panola County, Mississippi about 1854, continued the practice of law, and engaged in the extensive family agricultural pursuits. The couple had four children.
He settled in Memphis, Tennessee in 1860.
He served as a colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. After the war, he returned to Pulaski, Tennessee.
Elected as a Democrat to the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses, Ballentine served from March 4, 1883 to March 3, 1887. He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1886 and retired from active pursuits.
Ballentine died in Pulaski, Tennessee on November 23, 1915 (age 90 years, 187 days).
He is interred at the New Pulaski Cemetery.
He was a member of the faculty of Livingston Law School in New New York