74 



BRADY, JAMES T. 



claimed open war with him, which he carried 

 on as long as Mr. Tyler was President. In 

 the presidential campaign of 1844 he labored 

 earnestly and indefatigably for the election of 

 Mr. Clay. In 1852 Mr. Botts resumed the 

 practice" of his profession in Richmond, and 

 speedily met with the large success to which 

 his great talents and high legal ability entitled 

 him. On the disruption of the Whig party, 

 he joined the American party, and in 1859 an 

 attempt was made by that political organiza- 

 tion to nominate him for the presidency, but 

 it proved a failure. He continued his practice 

 and remained in Richmond till the commence- 

 ment of the war, but, being devoted to the 

 Union, and having used all his efforts, with- 

 out avail, to prevent Virginia from taking 

 the suicidal step of secession, he retired to 

 his farm near Culpepper Court-House, where 

 he remained most of the time during the war, 

 hated yet respected by the enemy. He was, 

 however, subjected to a great deal of trial and 

 inconvenience. One night in March, 1862, a 

 squad of a hundred men, under the orders of 

 General Winder, came to his house, took ^him 

 from his bed, and carried him to prison, 

 where he was held in solitary confinement 

 for eight weeks. His arrest was caused by 

 the well-founded suspicion that he was writ- 

 ing a secret history of the war. Search was 

 made for the manuscript, but nothing was 

 found. After the close of the war, this miss- 

 ing manuscript (of which a portion had been 

 in 1862 confided to the Count de Mercier, 

 French minister at Washington), formed the 

 basis of a volume prepared by Mr. Botts, 

 and published in New York by Messrs. Har- 

 per & Brothers, with the title of "The 

 Great Rebellion, its Secret History, Rise, Prog- 

 ress, and Disastrous Failure ! " The work 

 was too much of the nature of a personal nar- 

 rative, and was published in a time too thickly 

 crowded with great events, to have any very 

 considerable sale, and was, perhaps, less im- 

 portant in its revelations than the author 

 deemed it. After his release from prison Mr. 

 Botts returned to his home at Culpepper. 

 Here he was continually persecuted by the 

 enemy. His farm, too, was repeatedly over- 

 run by both armies, and dug over, time and 

 again, for military operations. When the 

 war had closed, Mr. Botts again took a deep 

 interest in political matters. He labored ear- 

 nestly for the early restoration of his State to 

 the Union, but without success. He was a 

 delegate to the National Convention of South- 

 ern Loyalists in Philadelphia in 1866, and in 

 1867 signed his name on the bail-bonds of 

 Jefferson Davis. From that time his energies 

 steadily declined. He declared his intention 

 to take the stump during the last canvass, for 

 General Grant, but was unable to do so, or 

 take any active part in the contest, on account 

 of his failing health. 



BRADY, JAMES TOPHAM, a learned, accom- 

 plished, and eloquent advocate and political 



leader, born in New York City, April 9, 1815 ; 

 died there, February 9, 1869. His father, 

 Thomas S. Brady, an accomplished scholar, had 

 emigrated with his family from Ireland in 1812, 

 and, after teaching a classical school for some 

 years, entered the legal profession, and died in 

 the prime of life, a Judge of the District Court, 

 leaving eight children to the care of this son. 

 James T. Brady was educated mostly by his 

 father, in his school, and subsequently in his 

 office ; and, at the early age of sixteen, such 

 was his thorough mastery of the law, that he 

 acted the part of junior counsel to his father. 

 He was admitted to the bar in 1835, when but 

 twenty years of age, and though " there were 

 giants " among the members of the New York 

 bar "in those days," men like Graham, San- 

 ford, Lord, Blunt, ; George Wood, and Ogden 

 Hoffman, he, almost at a bound, sprang into 

 the front rank of the profession, and main- 

 tained his place there ever after, sustained by 

 his profound knowledge of the law, his ready 

 tact, his extraordinary eloquence, and his genial 

 and courteous manners. He was conspicuous 

 for his ability in all departments of the law, 

 winning verdicts from judges and jurors, alike 

 in great patent cases, like that of Goodyear vs. 

 Day ; cases involving questions of medical ju- 

 risprudence, like the Allaire and Parish will 

 cases, and the moral-insanity plea in the case 

 of the forger Huntington or the homicide Cole ; 

 divorce cases, like that of Mrs. Edwin Forrest, 

 and, indeed, in civil cases of all sorts ; but his 

 special power was seen to the best advantage 

 in criminal cases, where he usually undertook 

 the defence. At one time he successfully de- 

 fended four clients, charged with murder, in a 

 single week, and all without fee or reward. His 

 defence of Daniel E. Sickles, at Washington, in 

 1859, was one of his most splendid achieve- 

 ments as a great criminal lawyer. In most of 

 the remarkable civil or criminal causes of the 

 past thirty years he had been retained on one 

 side or the other. His success as an advocate 

 was not due to any chicanery, not even to any of 

 the generally considered admissible advantages 

 taken by many members of the profession. He 

 was clear, frank, and honest, in the statement 

 of his cases, skilful and almost invariably cour- 

 teous in his cross-examination of witnesses, 

 but his arguments were put with such tact, 

 his statement of facts was so lucid and candid, 

 and his appeals were so eloquent and impres- 

 sive, that he almost invariably carried judge 

 and jury with him. It was said of him that he 

 never lost a case in which he was before a jury 

 for more than a week ; by that time they saw , 

 every thing through his eyes. With -his rare 

 gifts of quick insight and brilliant eloquence 

 he was necessarily a political leader-; but no 

 man was ever more thoroughly free from per- 

 sonal aspiration for office. He would have 

 nothing to do with any office which was out 

 of the line of his profession. He did not desire 

 any higher honor than that of being a great 

 lawyer ; yet, as a Democrat, he was one of the 



