Person

Eli Metcalfe Bruce (Kentucky merchant, philanthropist, soldier, Representative (Confederate))

b. 1828-02-22 d. 1866-12-15

Kentucky merchant, businessman, philanthropist, soldier, and politician. Fleming County, Kentucky, native. Son of George Stubblefield Bruce and Sabina Metcalfe Bruce. Married to Elizabeth Sarah “Sallie” Withers Bruce. Father of Mattie Withers Bruce, George Stubblefield Bruce, and Charles Albert Withers Bruce. Received a common education. Worked as a clerk at a dry goods store in Maysville, Kentucky, in 1847. Manufacturer of pig iron with his uncle, Henry Bruce, Jr., in Terre Haute, Indiana, from 1854 to 1859. Worked in the pork-packing industry in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his uncle, John S. Morgan. Owned several pork and beef packing plants along the Wabash, Missouri, and Mississippi rivers, based in St. Louis, Missouri, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Commercial merchant in St. Louis in 1860. Employed Celia Farrell and Jane Shepherd as servants in St. Louis in 1860. Source of supplies for the Confederacy in Chattanooga in 1861. Served as a staff officer for John C. Breckinridge in the Confederate State Army during the Civil War. Member of the Council of Ten in the provisional government of Kentucky. Served as chairman on the Committee on Banks and the Committee on Ways and Means for the provisional government of Kentucky. Elected to the First Confederate Congress in 1861. Member of the House of Representatives of the Second Confederate Congress from Kentucky's Ninth Congressional District from 1862 to 1865. Appointed by Confederate Secretary of War James E. Seddon as acting commissary general of the Confederate States of America from January 30, 1865, to the end of the war. Moved to New York City, New York in late 1865. Supported many Confederate veterans and their families through donations and establishment of a veterans hotel in New York City.

Details

Sex
Male
Race
White

Bibliography

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Missouri, St. Louis County, 5th Ward City of St. Louis, p. 202.

Ezra J. Warner and W. Buck Yearns, Biographical Register of the Confederate Congress (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975), 36.

Lewis Collins and Richard Collins, Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Fleming County, Flemingsburg, p. 259A.

Ezra J. Warner and W. Buck Yearns, Biographical Register of the Confederate Congress (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975), 36

Lewis Collins and Richard Collins, History of Kentucky, vol. 1 (Collins & Company, 1882), 353.

“Bruce, Eli Metcalf,” The Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky, ed. Paul A. Tenkotte and James C. Claypool (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015), 125.

Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970 for Eli Metcalf Bruce, March 17, 1953. Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970. Louisville, Kentucky: National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Microfilm, 508 rolls, p. 168 of microfilm.

Bruce Family Papers, Eva G. Farris Special Collections, W. Frank Steely Library, Northern Kentucky University, https://steelyarchives.nku.edu/specialcollections/alphabeticallist/bruce.html) (accessed January 19, 2017).

Find A Grave, “Eli Metcalfe Bruce (1828-1866),” Memorial 10043, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10043 (accessed January 19, 2017).

“Death of Eli M. Bruce,” Daily Courier (Louisville, Ky.), December 17, 1866.

“The Late E. M. Bruce,” Daily Courier (Louisville, Ky.), December 25, 1866.

“Confederate Financier,” Historic Marker #1638 in Kenton County, Kentucky, Historical Marker Database Search, Kentucky Historical Society, https://secure.kentucky.gov/kyhs/hmdb/MarkerSearch.aspx?mode=All, (accessed January 13, 2020).

KYR-0004-033-0001.

Citation

Bruce, Eli Metcalfe. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, https://discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/S32199774 (November 12, 2026).

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