Samuel Milligan

Samuel Milligan (November 16, 1814 – April 20, 1874) was a justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court and a judge of the Court of Claims. He was a close friend and confidant of President Andrew Johnson.

Education and career

Born on November 16, 1814, in Greene County, Tennessee, Milligan attended Greeneville College, and after its merger with Tusculum College, graduated from that institution in 1843. He read law with Robert J. McKinney in Greeneville, Tennessee in 1846. and represented Tennessee on a commission to resolve a boundary dispute with Virginia in 1858.

In his second appointment to the Supreme Court, Milligan served on the highly partisan "apocryphal" court, which was in place in Tennessee between the end of the Civil War and the enactment of the Constitution of 1870. The justices who served on this court "without exception, were bitter partisans" who "had all been Union men, and... took the partisan view of all questions growing out of the war". Of this group, Milligan is described as one of only two "who were men of talent, and were good lawyers", the other being George Andrews.

Federal judicial service

Milligan was nominated by President Andrew Johnson on July 23, 1868, to a seat on the Court of Claims (later the United States Court of Claims) vacated by Judge David Wilmot.