After serving as a
colonel of the state militia, Savage was the
Attorney General of the fourth district of Tennessee from 1841 to 1847. He was commissioned as
major of the
14th US Infantry in March 1847, and he was subsequently promoted to
lieutenant colonel of the 1847-1848
11th Infantry Regiment (United States) in September of the same year. Savage was elected as a
Democrat to the
Thirty-first and
Thirty-second Congresses, but he declined to be a candidate for re-election. He served from March 4, 1849 to March 3, 1853. He was again elected to the
Thirty-fourth and the
Thirty-fifth United States Congress, serving from March 4, 1855 to March 3, 1859. Serving as a colonel of the Sixteenth Regiment Tennessee Infantry in the
Confederate Army during the
Civil War, Savage was wounded at Perryville and again at Stones River in 1862. In February 1863 Savage resigned his
commission in anger over his failure to advance in the ranks. Savage was a member of the
Tennessee House of Representatives from 1877 to 1879 and from 1887 to 1891. He served in the
Tennessee Senate from 1879 to 1881. ==Death==