John Warwick Daniel (September 5, 1842 – June 29, 1910) was an American lawyer, author, and Democratic politician from Lynchburg, Virginia.

[1] Daniel was sometimes referred to as the "Lame Lion of Lynchburg", alluding to his permanent disability incurred during the Battle of the Wilderness, while serving as a major in the Confederate Army.

He entered politics and Campbell County voters elected him as a member of the Conservative Party to represent (part-time) them alongside Rufus Murrell and Robert C. Burkholder in the House of Delegates from 1869–72.

The Funding Act which the legislature had passed in 1871 (although Daniel did not vote for it at the time) proved a major campaign issue in Virginia for the next decade.

Others, known as Readjusters advocated reducing payments on the bonds issued in 1871 which reaffirmed the debts Virginia had acquired before the Civil War to construct railroads, bridges, etc.

However, Campbell county voters had elected Daniel to the state senate the previous year, and he was re-elected once before resigning the part-time position in 1881.

[7] In 1880, Daniel spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio in favor of the candidacy of former Union General Winfield Scott Hancock, whom he praised as offering the best hope for reconciliation between North and south.

Although Daniel was not running for office directly that year, he and Mahone were the leading candidates for the U.S. Senate seat that the General Assembly would soon select.

"[2][9] Democrats won control of the General Assembly, which was then allowed to reapportion legislative districts pursuant to the completed 1880 census.

Future Senator Carter Glass of Lynchburg developed a compromise involving a poll tax and writing test which passed and became a means for disenfranchising African Americans and poor whites.

In 1887, Virginia's General Assembly elected Daniel as a Democrat to the United States Senate to succeed Readjuster Republican William Mahone.

He also argued against repeal of the Sherman Silver Act and for Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, but by 1904 realized that was an ineffective campaign issue and helped remove it from the party's national platform.

[2] Always interested in veterans affairs, Senator Daniel was heavily involved in the initial planning of the Virginia Memorial on the Gettysburg Battlefield, as years earlier he had helped organize Lynchburg's commemoration of General Robert E. Lee upon his death.

Subscriptions were raised for a large bronze statue of Daniel, in a Confederate uniform and seated with a crutch leaning nearby.

[12] His father's home Point of Honor was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and it currently is operated as a house museum by the City of Lynchburg.