James Baird Weaver

James Baird Weaver 1833-1912, American political leader, b. Dayton, Ohio. Reared in frontier areas of Michigan and Iowa, he practiced law in Iowa. He served in the Union army in the Civil War and rose from the rank of private to that of brevet brigadier general. He held several offices in Iowa before he adopted the cause of reform and was elected (1878) to the U.S. House of Representatives on the Greenback party ticket. In 1880 he was the unsuccessful presidential candidate of the Greenback party. Again (1885-89) in Congress with the backing of the Democratic and the Greenback-Labor parties, Weaver continued to advocate "soft-money" views. He helped form the Farmers' Alliance—an agrarian reform movement—and when that organization became the Populist party , Weaver ran (1892) as its presidential candidate. He recorded his political views in A Call to Action (1892). Although defeated, he polled more than one million popular and 22 electoral votes. Weaver became one of the important leaders of the free-silver movement, backed William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 presidential campaign, and after the decline of Populism retired from national politics.

Bibliography: See biography by F. E. Haynes (1919).

Weaver, James Baird (1833–1912) U.S. soldier, congressman, and politician. Born in Dayton, Ohio, James Baird Weaver established a legal practice in Bloomfield, Iowa a few years before the Civil War. When it began he was elected a first lieutenant in the Second Iowa Infantry. He saw action at Fort Donelson and Shiloh(both 1862) and earned a reputation for bravery in combat. He assumed command of the regiment during the Battle of Corinth and was promoted to colonel soon after. He carried out occupation duties in Tennessee before participating in the early stages of William T. Sherman's drive on Atlanta. When Weaver's enlistment expired in May 1864 he left the army, though he was later retroactively brevetted brigadier general for his gallantry. After the war he was elected to Congress on the Greenback ticket, and he later became prominent in the Populist movement, winning twenty-two electoral votes as their presidential candidate in 1892.