Vespasian Warner
Vespasian Warner was a U.S. representative from Illinois.
Biography
Born in Mount Pleasant, De Witt County, Illinois, Warner moved with his parents to Clinton, Illinois, in 1843.He attended public schools in Clinton, and Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois.
He also studied law in Clinton.
Enlisted as a private in Company E,, June 13, 1861.
He was promoted to sergeant June 23, 1861, second lieutenant February 4, 1862, captain and commissary of subsistence February 10, 1865.
He was brevetted major March 13, 1865, and was mustered out July 13, 1866.
After his military service, he enrolled in the law department of Harvard University, graduating in 1868. He returned to Illinois the same year to practice law in his hometown of Clinton, Illinois. His law partner was his father-in-law, Clifton H. Moore.
Warner was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-fourth and to the four succeeding Congresses.
He served as chairman of the Committee on Revision of the Laws.
In 1904, Warner ran for Governor of Illinois as a Republican, but he failed to win his party's nomination. The Republican nominee Charles S. Deneen won the general election. After the election, President Theodore Roosevelt nominated Warner for the job of United States Commissioner of Pensions, heading an agency within the Department of the Interior which was roughly equivalent to today's Department of Veterans Affairs. Warner served from March 4, 1905, until November 25, 1909.
He engaged in business in Clinton, Illinois, as a banker and realty owner and agent. He died in Clinton on March 31, 1925. He was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery.