Floyd
JOHN BUCHANAN, an American statesman; born in Blacksburg, Va., June 1, 1807; was admitted to the bar in 1828; served in the Virginia Legislature several terms; and was governor of the State in 1850-1853.
In 1857 President Buchanan appointed him Secretary of War. While in the cabinet he was detected in the act of stripping the Northern arsenals of arms and ammunition, and indicted by the grand jury of the District of Columbia as being privy to the abstracting of $870,000 in bonds from the Department of the Interior. He fled, however, to Virginia, where, at the close of 1860, he was commissioned a general in the Confederate army. In that capacity he was driven from West Virginia by General Rosecrans. The night before the surrender of Fort Donelson he stole away in the darkness, throwing the responsibility of surrendering on a subordinate officer, and, being censured by the Confederate government, never afterward served in the army. He died near Ab- He died near Ab ingdon, Va., Aug. 26, 1863.