In 1869, he was appointed Commonwealth attorney for the thirteenth judicial district of Kentucky.

He served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of War (Forty-eighth Congress).

In 1883, he fatally shot his wife Martha's alleged lover, Walter H. Davis (who had supposedly seduced her with alcohol), on a train near Harrodsburg.

He died in Washington, D.C., December 15, 1909 and was interred in Spring Hill Cemetery, Harrodsburg, Kentucky.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress