Charles Stewart Todd (January 22, 1791 – May 17, 1871) was an American military officer, government official and United States diplomat, serving as ambassador to Russia during the mid-19th century.
Shortly after, he volunteered in the War of 1812 where he was a subaltern and judge-advocate of General James Winchester's division in the War of 1812. In 1813, he was made a captain of infantry, and was an aide to General William Henry Harrison in the Battle of the Thames. In 1815, he became Inspector-General of the Michigan Territory under General Duncan McArthur who commissioned him with the rank of colonel. Shortly thereafter, Todd returned to Kentucky to establish a legal practice in the state capital of Frankfort where his diplomatic and political career began to expand. On June 18, 1816, he married the youngest of Governor Isaac Shelby's daughters, Letitia, with whom he had 12 children.[2]
Government service
He served as a state representative in the years following his political establishment in Frankfort, and in 1816, he was appointed Secretary of State of Kentucky. In 1820, Todd was appointed a Confidential Agent to Gran Colombia, where he would remain until 1824. US. President James Monroe offered Todd a position to the secretaryship of the delegation to Colombia in 1823, but he declined the offer. He instead went to retire in Shelby County, Kentucky, where he worked on his farm and took up writing.[1]
Later career
Todd came out of his retirement upon being appointed Minister to Russia. From 1841 to 1846 he served as the fifteenth United States Ambassador to Russia during the entirety of President Tyler's administration. He then went back to his retirement in 1846 and spent his time raising livestock and writing. He refused a later nomination for Governor of Kentucky, but remained politically active during Zachary Taylor's presidential campaign of 1848. He took interest in writing and in the state of Texas and its railroad system.[citation needed] He served as an editor of the Louisville Industrial and Commercial Gazette and the Cincinnati Republican.
^Jelsma, Sherry K. "The Making of Imperishable Honor: Charles S. Todd in the War of 1812." The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 105, no. 2 (2007): 195–227. Accessed August 2, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23387887.
"Charles Stewart Todd". Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History. Vol. IX. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1905. p. 83.
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