Kellogg was appointed as chief justice of the
Nebraska Territory by Lincoln in 1861 but served only briefly in the role. With the outbreak of the
Civil War, Kellogg was granted a leave of absence and returned to Illinois to organize the
7th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Cavalry. By 1862, he had risen to the rank of colonel serving in Missouri under the command of General
John Pope. He was promoted to brigadier general but resigned due to ill health on June 1, 1862. He returned to Nebraska and resumed his work as chief justice. After the Civil War, Kellogg was elected as a companion of the
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. This launched Kellogg's 20-year political career in Louisiana, notable as he was one of the first perceived
carpetbaggers. until 1868 and was then elected to the
United States Senate. That year, "
reconstructed" Louisiana was readmitted to the federal Union. In 1872, Kellogg ran on the Republican ticket and was elected governor. He resigned from the Senate to take office. In the election,
John McEnery, a
Democrat, ran against Kellogg. The sitting Governor
Henry Clay Warmoth, although a Republican, opposed the Republican Party faction that was loyal to President
Ulysses S. Grant, who was supporting Kellogg. Warmoth supported McEnery. The results of the election were disputed by the Democrats. The politics of the state was in turmoil for months, as both candidates held inauguration celebrations, certified their local candidate slates and tried to gather political power. Political tensions broke out into violence, including the
Colfax Massacre in April 1873. As governor, Warmoth controlled the State Returning Board, the institution which administered elections. With the election challenged, Warmoth's board named McEnery the winner. A rival board claimed Kellogg to be the victor, although the board had no ballots or returns to count. Former Confederate Assistant Secretary of War
John Archibald Campbell was involved in the controversy surrounding Kellogg. He was a member of the "Committee of One Hundred" that went to Washington to persuade Grant to end his support of what they called the "Kellogg usurpation". Grant initially refused to meet them but later relented. Campbell stated the case before Grant but was refused. The House of Representatives declared that the Kellogg regime was "not much better than a successful conspiracy." The Senate threw out both returns of Louisiana's 1872 presidential electoral results. A Senate committee reported that the entire Louisiana 1872 election had been unfair and that both state governments were illegal. It recommended that a new election be held under federal supervision. Grant ignored the Senate committee recommendation and chose to put the force of the U. S. Army behind Kellogg's machine, perhaps because Grant's own brother-in-law, James Casey, was part of the machine. Casey also held the lucrative post of New Orleans Customs Collector, to which Grant reappointed him in March 1873. In January 1875 Grant admitted that Louisiana's 1872 election "was a gigantic fraud, and there are no reliable returns of its result." In February 1876, Kellogg was impeached by the Louisiana House of Representatives. The Senate did not convict him, however, and he remained in office. Warmoth was
impeached for allegedly stealing the election. A black Republican,
P. B. S. Pinchback, became governor for 35 days until Grant seated Kellogg as governor with federal protection. McEnery's faction established a "rump legislature" in New Orleans to oppose Kellogg's actions. McEnery urged his supporters to take up arms against Kellogg's fraudulent government. In 1874 the anti-Republican
White League sent 5,000 paramilitary men into New Orleans, wherein the
Battle of Liberty Place, they defeated the 3500-man Metropolitan Police and state militia. They took over the state government offices for a few days but retreated before the arrival of federal troops sent as reinforcements at Kellogg's request. Kellogg's lieutenant governor was
Caesar Antoine, an African-American native of New Orleans. He had been a
State Senator from
Shreveport before running as lieutenant governor. Despite the intense backlash against the Republican Party among white Democrats in the South, Kellogg was elected to the United States Senate in 1876. He served in the Senate until 1883. He did not seek re-election, for his party was too weak in the South to be competitive. He was the chairman of the
Senate Committee on Railroads from 1881 to 1883. Kellogg was elected to the
United States House of Representatives in 1882, defeating the incumbent Democrat
Chester Bidwell Darrall and served one term from 1883 to 1885. He was defeated for re-election in 1884 by
Edward James Gay. He continued to live in
Washington, D.C., but retired from political life. He died in Washington and is buried at
Arlington National Cemetery in
Virginia. Kellogg was one of the most important politicians in Louisiana during and immediately after
Reconstruction. He was able to maintain power for much longer than most Republican elected officials who had come to the area from the North. He is also notable as one of few senators to be elected to the House of Representatives immediately after leaving the Senate. (
Claude Pepper, a 20th-century
Florida Democrat, was similarly elected to the House after having served in the Senate but did not begin his long House tenure until 12 years after the end of his Senate service.) ==References==