Joseph Holt - Postmaster General / Secretary of War

Joseph Holt - Postmaster General / Secretary of War James Buchanan appointed Joseph Holt the commissioner of patents, (1856-1858) but when Postmaster General Aaron Brown died on March 8, 1859, Holt was chosen to be his replacement. (March 9, 1859-January 1, 1861) Secretary of War John Floyd resigned in December 1860, and on January 18, 1861 Holt was renamed to fill Floyd’s former office, thus changing his title from postmaster general to secretary of war. (January 18, 1861-March 4, 1861) Following the Buchanan administration, President Lincoln named Holt the judge advocate general of the army. When Lincoln’s Attorney General Edward Bates resigned in 1864 Lincoln asked Holt to fill the position, but he refused the offer to continue in his role as the judge advocate general. Joseph Holt presided over the trial of the conspirators who participated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, (April 1865) as well as two of his famous “Copperhead Cases.” Two specific copperhead cases, Ex parte Vallandigham (1864) and Ex parte Milligan (1866), in which Northerners sympathized with the South, garnered Holt much criticism later in life. Joseph Holt was born in Breckinridge County, Kentucky on January 6, 1807, was educated at St. Joseph’s College and Centre College and died on August 1, 1894.

Encyclopedia of the United States Cabinet. Marc Grossman, editor. 2000.