John B. Breathitt, P. O., Marshall. Is a native of Logan county, Kentucky, where he was born in 1844, and is son of Cardwell and Mary (Slaughter) Breathitt, and grandson of Gov. John Breathitt, of Kentucky. His father moved to Missouri in 1852, and settled on a farm close to the county line between Saline and Cooper, and in Cooper county, where he still lives, and where John B. was raised and educated. He also went two terms to Prof. G. B. Newton, in Pettis county. In 1861 he was appointed a cadet to the West Point Military academy, but owing to the breaking out of the war, he declined the appointment. In December, 1861, he joined Capt. Sutherlin’s squad of recruits for the Confederate army, who, on reaching Memphis, Tennessee, were organized into company G., 2d Missouri Cavalry, the only Missouri Cavalry east of the Mississippi river. He remained with his regiment all through the war, participating in all its battles, for a list of which, see muster roll of company G. 2d Missouri Cavalry, in soldier’s record. At the organization of the regiment it mustered over 900 men, and when it surrendered at Columbus, Mississippi, in 1865, it was reduced to 150 men, all told. After the war he returned home and went to work on his father’s farm, and reading law in all spare time. He was admitted to the bar in Marshall in 1873, by Judge Townsley. In 1876 he was elected prosecuting attorney for Saline county for two years. Since then he has devoted himself to the practice of his profession in Marshall.
