[1] Solicitor General Bristow advocated for African American citizens in Kentucky to be allowed to testify in a white man's court case.

Having graduated from Jefferson College in Pennsylvania in 1851, Bristow studied law and passed the bar in 1853, working as an attorney until the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861.

[3] Bristow graduated at Jefferson College, Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1851, studied law under his father, and was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1853.

[1][2] In December 1860, after Abraham Lincoln was elected, the South seceded from the Union and formed the Confederacy (1861), primarily to protect the institution of slavery, profitable cotton plantations, and resistance to black integration and citizenship.

At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Bristow, an ardent Unionist, joined the Union Army, and mustered the 25th Kentucky Infantry .

[8] In April 1862, General Grant and most of his Union Army were encamped at Pittsburg Landing, and had planned to attack Corinth, a Confederate stronghold.

At this two day Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, Bristow was severely wounded by an exploding shell over his head and temporarily forced to retire from field duty in order to recover from his injury.

[8] On September 23, 1863, Bristow was honorably discharged from service in the Union Army; having been elected Kentucky State Senator by Christian County.

[1] Bristow supported all Union war effort legislation, the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln in 1864, and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment that outlawed slavery.

Bristow served as district attorney until 1870 and spent a few months practicing law in partnership with future United States Supreme Court Justice John Harlan.

[9][8] Bristow and U.S. Attorney General Amos Akerman prosecuted thousands of Klansmen that resulted in a brief two-year quiet period during the turbulent Reconstruction Era in the South.

At this time Kentucky law forbade the 225,000 black U.S. citizens from testifying in any civil or criminal case involving a white man.

He stated the Kentucky law that denied African Americans the right to testify in a white man's case had roots in slavery and was a "monstrous and grievous wrong to both races."

[14] He drastically reorganized the Treasury Department,[14] abolished the corrupt office of supervising architect made famous by Alfred B. Mullett, and[14] dismissed the second-comptroller and his subordinates for inefficiency.

The controversy centered around Robeson wanting to have Senator A.G. Cattell appointed financial agent in London to negotiate a bond issue.

Bristow told Grant that Robeson's Navy Department was financially mismanaged, and was under the control of former treasury secretary Hugh McCulloch's banking house.

Secretary of State Hamilton Fish told Grant that Kate had received a bribe of $30,000 from Pratt & Boyd for the Justice Department to drop a case against the company.

In October 1875, Grant finally replaced Delano with reformer Zachariah Chandler, who cleaned up corruption in the Interior Department.

[25] An effort to transfer revenue supervisors, proposed by Douglas, to new locations, to dismantle the ring, was defeated when, out of political objection, Grant suspended the order on February 4, 1875.

Monitored by Wilson, incorruptible investigative agents, that included Yaryan, obtained a vast supply of evidence in St. Louis of frauds committed by the ring.

[32] Bristow, in order to secure the enormity of the Whiskey Ring corruption, audited railroad and steamboat cargo receipts for accurate figures of the shipment of liquor in St. Louis and other key cities.

[33] To keep the investigation secret from the ring, Bristow gave the agents a cipher different from the Treasury code, while messages were relayed through Fishback and Boynton.

[14] Evidence of fraudulent activity was quickly obtained, into a profiteering scheme, that involved corrupt distillers and revenue agents.

[34] Bristow's investigation revealed that Grant appointment, General John McDonald, St. Louis Collector of Internal Revenue, who controlled seven states, was the ring leader.

However, after McDonald left Bristow's office, knowing he would be indicted, he unsuccessfully asked Wilson for indemnity from prosecution, and that the corrupt distilleries not be raided.

[14] Treasury agents raided and shut down distilleries, rectifying houses, and bottling plants in St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, and six other Mid-Western states.

[38] Bristow's investigation extended into the White House, as evidence suggested Grant's private Secretary, Orville E. Babcock, was a secret and paid informer of the Whiskey Ring.

Bristow testified in front of a congressional committee on the Whiskey Ring, he would not give any specific information regarding his conversations with President Grant, having claimed executive privilege.

[40] As the first Solicitor General Bristow aided in prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan that enabled African Americans in the South to vote freely without fear of violent retaliation.

Smith said Bristow "brought a reforming zeal to the Grant administration, reinforced by a heady dose of ambition that was not out of place for a man in his early forties.