the 2nd Congressional District in hopes of breaking Republicans' electoral dominance in the district. Sensing defeat, the district's Republican congressman, Horace Maynard, withdrew from the race for the 2nd District seat and instead ran for the state's at-large district seat. Thornburgh accepted the Republican Party's nomination for the 2nd District seat, and in spite of the Democrats' redistricting efforts, won the seat in the general election. In the election of 1874, Leonidas C. Houk challenged Thornburgh for the Republican nomination for the 2nd District's seat. After a very competitive campaign, both candidates claimed the nomination, and both intended to run in the general election, which would have split the Republican vote and threaten the party's hold on the seat. Senator William G. Brownlow, by this time a revered figure among East Tennesseans, intervened on Thornburgh's behalf, and Houk withdrew, allowing Thornburgh to coast to an easy victory. Thornburgh ran unchallenged in 1876, and decided not to seek reelection in 1878. Later life Thornburgh largely retired from political life after 1879, although he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1880. He returned to Knoxville and formed a law partnership with Charles D. McGuffey (a nephew of William Holmes McGuffey, author of the McGuffey Readers), and later formed a partnership with future Supreme Court justice Edward Terry Sanford. In 1889, Thornburgh donated a large number of books to the burgeoning Lawson McGhee Library. Thornburgh died on September 19, 1890, and was interred in Old Gray Cemetery. His daughter, Laura Thornburgh, was a journalist and author, perhaps best known for publishing one of the first hiking guides to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1937. His son, John Minnis Thornburgh, was a prominent Knoxville lawyer and Republican Party leader during the early 20th century. References External links 1837 births 1890 deaths People from New Market, Tennessee People of Tennessee in the American Civil War Politicians from Knoxville, Tennessee Southern Unionists in the American Civil War Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee 19th-century American politicians