John DeWitt Clinton Atkins
U. S. House of Representatives, Tennessee, 1857-1859
Confederate Congressman, Tennessee, 1861-1865
Born: June 4, 1825, near Manly's Chapel, Henry County, Tennessee.
Died: June 2, 1908, Paris, Tennessee
- Attended a private school in Paris, Tennessee
- East Tennessee University, Knoxville, Tennessee, graduate, 1846.
- Studied law, was admitted to the bar, but did not practice.
- Engaged in agricultural pursuits.
- Member of the Tennessee State House of Representatives, 1849-1851.
- Served in the Tennessee State Senate, 1855-1857.
- Presidential elector on the Democratic ticket of Buchanan and Breckinridge, 1856.
- Elected as a Tennessee Democrat to the Thirty-fifth U. S. Congress, March 4, 1857 - March 3, 1859.
- Unsuccessful candidate for re-election, 1858, to the Thirty-sixth U. S. Congress.
- During the Civil War served as Lieutenant Colonel of the Fifth Tennessee Regiment in the Confederate Army, 1861.
- Elected to the Confederate Provisional Congress, August and November 1861, and November 1863.
- Elected as a Tennessee Democrat to the Forty-third and to the four succeeding U. S. Congresses, March 4, 1873 - March 3, 1883.
- Was not a candidate for renomination, 1882.
- Engaged in agricultural pursuits near Paris, Henry County, Tennessee.
- Presidential elector on the Democratic ticket of Cleveland and Hendricks, 1884.
- Appointed U. S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs by President Cleveland, March 21, 1885, and served until June 13, 1888, when he resigned.
- Was an unsuccessful candidate for the Tennessee Democratic nomination for U. S. Senator, 1888.
- Again engaged in agricultural pursuits.
- Retired from active pursuits in 1898 and moved to Paris, Tennessee, where he lived in retirement until his death
Buried: City Cemetery, Paris, Tennessee
(Source: U.S. Congress. House. Biographical Directory Of The American Congress 1774-1949, 85th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Doc. 607 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950), pp. 759-2057.)