Background
Bunch was born in what is now Grainger County, Tennessee, the son of John and Mary (Asher) Bunch. He married Amanda Anderson, daughter of Joseph M. and Mary Cocke Anderson about 1806 in Granger County.
Bunch was born in what is now Grainger County, Tennessee, the son of John and Mary (Asher) Bunch. He married Amanda Anderson, daughter of Joseph M. and Mary Cocke Anderson about 1806 in Granger County.
He attended the public schools and engaged in agricultural pursuits.
Bunch served in the Creek War as captain of a company of mounted riflemen under General Andrew Jackson and participated in the attack on the main Hillabee town on November 18, 1813, and later participated in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on March 27, 1814. He was sheriff of Grainger County for several years. From 1819 to 1823, he represented Campbell, Claiborne, and Grainger counties in the Tennessee Senate.
In 1820, he voted against the bill establishing the Bank of Tennessee.
Elected was elected to Congress in 1833, defeating former 2nd district representative John Cocke, 4,319 votes to 1,815 (the incumbent, Thomas Doctorate Arnold, moved to the 1st district). He was reelected by a similar margin in 1835.
Bunch served as a Jacksonian in the Twenty-third Congress and as an Anti-Jacksonian in the Twenty-fourth Congress, and subsequently joined the Whig Party. In 1837, he was defeated in his reelection effort by the Democratic candidate, Abraham McClellan, 3,228 votes to 2,741.
He served as major of the 4th Regiment Tennessee Volunteers in the Mexican War.
In May 1850, he led the skeleton Mississippi Regiment in the Narciso Lopez invasion of Cuba. Samuel Bunch resumed agricultural pursuits and died on his farm near Rutledge, Tennessee on September 5, 1849 (age 62 years, 275 days). He is interred at a private cemetery on his farm.
Whig Party, Democratic Party.
Member United States House