John Milton Elliott

John Milton Elliott (May 16, 1820 – March 26, 1879) was an American lawyer and politician from Prestonsburg, Kentucky. He represented Kentucky in the United States House of Representatives from 1853 until 1857 and served in the First Confederate Congress during the American Civil War.

Elliott was born in Scott County, Virginia on May 16, 1820 to John and Jane Elliott. The family moved to Kentucky during his childhood, with his father serving two terms in the Kentucky General Assembly. In 1841 he began practicing law in Prestonsburg, Kentucky. He was elected to the Kentucky legislature in 1847. He later followed it with a stint in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1853 to 1859.

In 1861 he went back to the Kentucky legislature, but was expelled by Judge Bland Ballard on December 21, 1861 for giving aid to the Confederate States of America. He then turned his loyalties to the Confederacy, helping to form the Confederate government of Kentucky, and served in its Senate as a Senator from Kentucky.

After the war, he moved to Bath County, Kentucky. In 1876, Elliott began serving on the Kentucky Court of Appeals.

On March 26, 1879 Judge Elliott and fellow jurist Thomas Hines left the Kentucky State House, when they met a judge from Henry County, Kentucky, Colonel Thomas Buford. Buford's late sister had lost her land to pay back a debt of $20,000; Elliott had ruled against her in a court proceeding in which she had attempted to save the property.

After Hines had turned and walked away from Elliott, Buford asked Elliott whether he wanted to go on a snipe hunt, then shot him point-blank with a double-barreled shotgun filled with twelve buckshot, as he had sworn on his sister's grave he would do. Hines inspected the body as Buford turned himself in to a deputy sheriff who had come to see where the shotgun blast came from.

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