William Brimage Bate (October 7, 1826March 9, 1905) was a planter and slaveholder, Confederate officer, and politician in Tennessee. After the Reconstruction era, he served as the 23rd governor of Tennessee from 1883 to 1887. He was elected to the United States Senate from Tennessee, serving from 1887 until his death. During the Civil War, he had fought for the Confederacy, eventually rising to the rank of major general and commanding a division in the Army of Tennessee. Bate saw action in multiple engagements throughout the war, and was seriously wounded on two occasions. Early life and career Bate was born in Bledsoe's Lick (now Castalian Springs) in Sumner County, Tennessee, the son of James H. Bate and the former Amanda Weatherred. He attended a log schoolhouse known as the "Rural Academy". When he was 15, his father died, and he left home to find work. He was eventually hired as a clerk on the steamboat, Saladin, which traveled up and down the Cumberland, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers between Nashville and New Orleans. While his steamboat was docked in New Orleans, word came of the outbreak of the Mexican–American War in 1848, and Bate enlisted in a Louisiana regiment. When this enlistment ended a few months later, he reenlisted with the rank of lieutenant in Company I of the 3rd Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. He accompanied General Joseph Lane on several raids in pursuit of Santa Anna toward the end of the war. After the war, Bate returned to his family farm in Sumner County, and established a pro-Democratic Party newspaper, the Tenth Legion, in nearby Gallatin. He was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1849. In 1852, he obtained his law degree from Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee and was admitted to the bar. After the state constitution was amended to allow for direct election of judicial officers in 1854, Bate was elected attorney general for the Nashville district. Bate campaigned for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Johnson in 1855, and was an elector for Southern Democratic presidential candidate John C. Breckinridge in 1860. He was offered his district's nomination for Congress in 1859, but declined. He was a staunch supporter of secession in the years leading up to the Civil War. American Civil War Following the Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Bate enlisted in a private company in Gallatin, and was elected as its captain. In