[1] Shortly thereafter, he relocated to Northern Kentucky, where he worked at a pork packing factory owned by his uncle in Cincinnati, Ohio.

[1] In 1859, he sold his interest in the iron furnace company and purchased several pork packing plants along the Mississippi, Missouri, and Wabash Rivers.

[4] When Kentucky was admitted to the Confederacy in December 1861, Bruce was elected to one of the Commonwealth's ten congressional seats.

[1] On May 10, 1865, he published an open letter offering to pay the educational expenses of any Confederate soldier who had lost an arm or leg in the war.

[1] Bruce died of heart disease on December 15, 1866, and was buried in Linden Grove Cemetery in Covington, Kentucky.