The Biographical Dictionary of America/Bate, William Bremage

​BATE, William Bremage, senator, was born at Castilian Springs, Tenn., Oct. 7, 1826. He was educated at an academy and became clerk on a steamboat. At the breaking out of the Mexican war he volunteered as a private, serving thus until its close, when, returning to his native state, he was elected to the lower house of the Tennessee legislature. In 1852 he was graduated from the Lebanon law school, going thence to Gallatin, where he began to practise law. From 1854 to 1860 he acted as attorney-general for the Nashville district, during which time he declined a nomination as representative in Congress. In 1860 he was a Democratic presidential elector. The following year he joined the Confederate army as a private, and was promoted through the ranks of captain, colonel, and brigadier-general to that of major-general, serving throughout the war. At its close he returned to Tennessee and again began to practise law. In 1868 he was a delegate to the Democratic national convention, and he served for twelve years on the national Democratic executive committee for Tennessee. In 1876 he was a Democratic elector for the state at large, and was elected governor of Tennessee in 1882 and 1884. He was elected United States senator in 1887, to which office he was re-elected in 1893, and in 1899.