Philip Sidney POST, Congress, IL (1833-1895)

POST, Philip Sidney, a Representative from Illinois; born in Florida, Orange County, N.Y., March 19, 1833; pursued classical studies and was graduated from Union College, Schenectady, N.Y., in 1855; entered the Poughkeepsie Law School; was admitted to the bar in Illinois in 1856; during the Civil War entered the Union Army and served with the Fifty-ninth Regiment, Illinois Infantry; promoted through the ranks to colonel; brevetted brigadier general of Volunteers December 16, 1864; awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor, March 8, 1893, for action at the Battle of Nashville; appointed consul to Vienna in 1866; promoted to consul general to Austria-Hungary in 1874; resigned in 1879; commander of the department of Illinois, Grand Army of the Republic, in 1886; elected as a Republican to the Fiftieth and to the four succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1887, until his death, before the close of the Fifty-third Congress, in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 1895; interment in Hope Cemetery, Galesburg, Ill.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present