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.
