Cullom, Shelby M.
b. November 22, 1829, in Wayne County, Kentucky; d. January 28, 1914, in Washington, D.C. As an infant, Cullom came with
his family to Tazewell County, Illinois. Cullom attended school at Rock River Seminary for two years
and came to Springfield, Illinois, in 1853 to study at the law firm of Stuart and Edwards. Two years later, he was admitted
to the
Illinois bar and soon thereafter received the appointment of city attorney for Springfield. He was actively involved in Whig
politics in Illinois, serving several terms in both Congress and the state legislature. In 1856, he was elected to the state
legislature and was reelected in 1860. In 1862, President Lincoln appointed Cullom a member of the War Claims Commission at
Cairo,
Illinois, where he investigated the accounts of the United States quartermaster and commissary officers. In 1864 and again
in
1868, Cullom was elected to Congress. After serving in Congress, Cullom held political office as a state representative, Governor
of Illinois, and U. S. Senator.
Shelby Cullom, Fifty Years of Public Service (Chicago: A.C. McClurg & Co., 1911); Edward F. Dunne,
Illinois: The Heart of the Nation (Chicago & New York: Lewis Publishing, 1933), 39-40; John A.
Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999),
5:841-43; Allen Johnson, ed., Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner’s & Sons,
1964), 2:2:588-89; James W. Neilson, "Shelby Cullom: Prairie State Republican," Illinois Studies in the Social
Sciences (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962); John Palmer, ed., The Bench and Bar of Illinois:
Historical and Reminiscent (Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1899), 1:549- 53; United States Biographical
Dictionary: Illinois Dictionary (Chicago: American Biographical Dictionary, 1876), 192-93; Albert A. Woldman,
Lawyer Lincoln (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1936), 269. Illustration courtesy of
the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, IL.