Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/95

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DANIEL
DANIEL
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ening a rupture of diplomatic relations. He caused some scandal by escorting to a royal ball at Turin (on occasion of the betrothal of Prince Napoleon and Princess Clotilde) the Countess Marie de Solms (afterward Madame Ratazzi), who had not been invited. This matter was the subject of a curious corre- spondence be- tween Cavour and his minis- ter at Washing- ton. Garibaldi requested Dan- iel to annex Nice to the Ameri- can republic, which Daniel declined on the ground that it was contrary to

the Monroedoctrine! His social relations at

Turin were for a time rendered unpleasant through the imprudent publication by a friend in Richmond of a private letter in which he ridiculed the habitués of the court, the letter having found its way to Turin. Nevertheless, Daniel passed more than seven agreeable years abroad. At the beginning of the civil war he hastened home, and served on the staff of Gen. A. P. Hill. His arm being shat- tered, he resumed editorship of the Richmond " Examiner." He attacked Jefferson Davis and Mr. Elmore (Confederate treasurer) with great «everity, was challenged in 1864 by the latter, and met him in a duel, where he was unable to point his pistol on account of his wounded arm. He was shot in the leg in this duel. He predicted the col- lapse of the Confederacy, and died three days be- fore it occurred. Frederick S. Daniel has printed privately a volume containing his brother's leading articles during the war, with a memoir.


DANIEL, John Reeves Jones, b. in Halifax county, N. C, about 1802 ; d. in Louisiana. He was graduated at the University of North Carolina in 1821, studied law, and practised with success, sat in the legislature in 1832-'4, and was elected attor- ney-general in the latter year. In 1840 he was elected, as a democrat, to congress, and served continuously from 1 May, 1841, to 3 March, 1853. He afterward removed to Louisiana.


DANIEL, Peter Vivian, jurist, b. in Stafford county, Va., 24 April. 1784; d. in Richmond, Va., 30 June, 1860. His father, Travers Daniel, was a son of Peter Daniel, who married a daughter of Raleigh Travers, of the Virginia house of bur- gesses. The residence of Travers Daniel, Crow's Nest, near the mouth of Potomac creek, was cele- brated for its hospitalities, and the family bore an important part in public affairs. Peter Vivian was graduated at Princeton in 1805, and studied law in the office of Edmund Randolph (of Washington's cabinet), whose daughter, Lucy Nelson Randolph, he married in 1811. He was chosen a member of the privy council of Virginia in 1812, and served part of the time as lieutenant-governor of the state until 1835. In 1836 he was appointed by President Van Buren to be judge of the district circuity court of Virginia, and was raised to the supreme court, 3 March, 1841, to succeed Mr. Justice Barbour. Judge Daniel was a democrat, and a personal as well as political friend of President Jackson. He was a gentleman of fine taste in literature, possessed musical accomplishments, and his judicial opinions are marked by care and clearness.


DANIEL, Raleigh Travers, jurist, b. in Staf- ford county, Va., 15 Oct., 1805 ; d. in Richmond, 16 Aug., 1877. His father was an eminent physician, his mother a daughter of Thomas Stone, signer of the Declaration of Independence. His early edu- cation was acquired from John Lewis, who kept a classical school in Spottsylvania county, and was perhaps the best teacher of Latin and Greek in that region. At the age of seventeen he entered the otSce of his uncle. Judge P. V. Daniel (afterward of the U. S. supreme court), at Richmond, and, after a careful training for the profession of law, took a high position at the bar. In the early part of his career he was appointed commonwealth's attorney for Henrico county, in which Richmond is situated, and held that office until 1852. Though belonging to a democratic family, he was the leader of the whig party in Richmond while yet a young man, and was repeatedly elected to represent "that city in the legislature. He was the favorite orator of his party in Virginia, always chairman of its state committee, and on its electoral ticket ; and in the presidential canvasses of 1840 and 1844 he confronted the democratic champions in every part of the state. Such was the admiration felt for him by his opponents that in 1847 a democratic assem- bly elected him one of the three members of the governor's council. By seniority he became lieu- tenant-governor of the state. He was a strong Union man so long as that sentiment was possible in his state ; but when the war came he considered service to his state the paramount duty. When Richmond was occupied by the national forces Mr. Daniel was removed by Gen. Schofield from the office of city attorney. When the autonomy of the state was restored in 1868, he devoted himself to the work of organizing the conservative party, which triumphed in the election of Gilbert C. Walker as governor. In 1872 he was elected at- torney-general of Virginia, and in this office showed such ea]iacity for mastering the novel ques- tions and dinicullifs that had followed the confu- sion of affairs that at the next convention he was re-nominated by acclamation. He was elected by an overwhelming majority, on 11 Aug., 1877, but died from a ha?morrhage four days later. His cul- ture, eloquence, and social qualities are still re- membered in every part of Virginia, where no man of his political opinions had ever been so popular.


DANIEL, William, juiist, b. in Cumberland county, Va., in 1770; d. in Lynchburg, Va., 20 Nov., 1839. He was a member of the Virginia house of delegates, and gained reputation as an orator by his defence of the " Resolutions of '98." He became circuit judge and ex-officio member of the old general court of Virginia. His judicial opinions are high authority, and some of his say- ings are proverbial in his neighborhood. — His son, William, jurist, b. in Winchester, Va., 26 Nov., 1806 ; d. in Lynchburg, Va., 28 March, 1873, was educated at Hampden Sidney college and at the University of Virginia, and while yet a youth was a lawyer of large practice and wide reputation for eloquence. He was elected to the Virginia house of delegates before he was of age. He was an elector on the Polk ticket in 1844. He was a judge of the supreme court of appeals of Virginia from 1847 till 1865. — His son, Jolm Warwick, senator, b. in Lynchburg, Va., 5 Sept., 1842, received a classical education, and in May, 1861, volunteered in the Confederate army, in which he served throughout the war, rising to be major and ad- jutant-general of Early's division in the Army of