Lawyers and Lawmakers of Kentucky, by H. Levin, editor, 1897. Published
by Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago.  Reprinted by Southern Historical
Press.  p. 87.  Jefferson County.

JOSHUA FRY BULLITT, of Louisville, chief justice of Kentucky, was born
February 22, 1822, and descended on the paternal side from Captain Thomas
Bullitt and on the maternal side from Joshua Fry.  He was educated at
Center College, Danville, at the University of Virginia studied law and
was admitted to the bar in 1844.  In 1851 and 1853, he represented the
city of Louisville in the legislature, and in 1861 he was elected to the
court of appeals bench to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Judge
Henry C. Wood.
     In July, 1864, he was arrested under instructions of General Sherman
to General Burbridge, with a large number of prominent citizens of the
state.  About the same time Judge Alvin Duvall, whose term on the court
of appeals bench was about to expire, was a candidate for re-election in
the second district, and his name was also among those listed for arrest.
He left the state to avoid being incarcerated or tried by a military
tribunal, and by the military authorities his name was stricken off the
list of candidates to be voted for.  These two instances of interference
with the highest judiciary officers of the state by the military
authorities deserve record in a volume of character.  On the 22nd of
November, 1864, Judge Bullitt and others, who had been arrested in July
and August as southern sympathizers, and sent to Memphis, Tennessee, with
a view ostensibly of transferring them into the military lines of the
Confederacy, were returned to Louisville, and Judge Bullitt on December
6, 1864, resumed his place on the bench, where he remained discharging
his official duties until December 24, 1864.
     On the 4th of January, 1865, in a convention of the Radical Union
party at Frankfort, the appearance of Judge Bullitt on the bench was
denounced as an outrage on all propriety and a demand was made on the
public authorities, both federal and state, that they "take notice of the
notorious circumstances existing concerning him."  In the same convention
General S. G. Burbridge, who was in command of the military district which
embraced Kentucky, stated that Judge Bullitt's return to Kentucky was by
an exchange of prisoners between Confederate General Forrest and Federal
General Washburne, that "he was liable to re-arrest, ought to have been
re-arrested and hung, and would have been arrested had he not escaped."
Judge Bullitt, having well-founded fears for her personal safety, had left
Louisville, December 27, and taken up his abode in Canada.  On the 3d of
June, 1865, he was declared formally removed from the office of judge of
the court of appeals for the third district and chief justice of the court,
in accord with the address of the legislature in such case.  This event is
the only one in the judicial history of the state where a judge of its high
court has been removed.  Space will not permit of a more extended notice of
the details of this interesting case, but, as affording an insight into
the methods adopted even by civilized countries--not Cuba--in time of war,
the history of 1864 and 1865 is commended to the interested student, and
the archives of the legislature for the period referred to will furnish
material for thought.  A few extracts from Judge Bullitt's letter, under
date of May 24, to Governor Thomas E. Bramlette will be sufficient here.:
     "I was compelled to leave the state to avoid arrest and trial by a
military commission for an alleged offense over which the federal courts
had jurisdiction.  I was driven from the state by lawless violence. * * *
I determined to give to the general assembly of the commonwealth an
opportunity to decide the question whether they would rebuke the violence
with which the state has long been outraged in the persons and property of
its citizens, by refusing to entertain the charges against me during my
enforced absence, or whether they would approve that violence by trying me
whilst I continued to be its victim and condemning me upon the evidence of
detectives in the employment and pay of those who have thus trampled upon
my rights as a citizen and officer of the state. * * * Nor am I satisfied
that if I should return to Kentucky I would be safe from military arrest.
* * * The uncertainty of life and liberty is a natural and, perhaps,
necessary result of the despotism that has been established over you which
makes martial law by paper proclamation far in the rear of contending
armies, and enforces it against non-combatants in communities where the
courts are open and untrammeled except by the military power of the United
States."
     Judge Bullitt subsequently returned to Louisville, where he has
since resided.  On the 30th of January, 1869, he with other prominent
jurists memorialized the legislature in favor of the passage of an act
favoring negro testimony in the state courts, and other liberal laws
toward the colored race.  In 1871 Judge Bullitt was appointed one of the
commissioners to revise the code of practice, and in 1876 one of the
editors of the civil code.  Prior to 1855, he was a Whig, but later was
a Douglas Democrat, and stumped the state in 1860 for Douglas.  He is
fond of writing and study, a man of great force in his professional work
and a successful practitioner.  In the present years, 1897, he is engaged
on a new revision of the code.
     He was married December 6, 1846, to Elizabeth B., daughter of Dr.
George W. Smith, of Louisville.  His brother, THomas W. Bullitt, also a
prominent lawyer in Louisville, is mentioned elsewhere in this volume.

Bullitt Fry Wood Duvall Smith
=
Boyle-KY TN VA Canada

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/jefferson/bullitt.jf.txt