John W. Foster

32nd United States Secretary of State
John Watson Foster

In office June 29, 1892 – February 23, 1893
Preceded by	James G. Blaine
Succeeded by	Walter Q. Gresham

Born	March 2 1836(1836-03-02) Petersburg, Indiana, U.S.
Died	November 15 1917 (aged 81) U.S.
Political party	Republican
Profession	Lawyer, General, Politician

John Watson Foster (March 2, 1836 – November 15, 1917) was an American military man, journalist and diplomat.

Born in Petersburg, Indiana, and raised in Evansville, Indiana, he was first a lawyer and then served as general for the Union in the American Civil War. Following the war he worked as a journalist, editing the Evansville Daily Journal from 1865 to 1869. Thereafter he was the U.S. Minister to Mexico (1873-1880), to Russia (1880-1881) and to Spain (1883-1885). In the Benjamin Harrison Administration he served as a State Department "trouble shooter" before replacing James G. Blaine who had secumbed to what became a fatal attack of Bright's Disease. He served as U.S. Secretary of State under President Benjamin Harrison in 1892 and 1893. He also helped the Qing Dynasty in drafting the Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895 as a legal consultant and commissioner.

His grandchildren included John Foster Dulles, who also became a U.S. Secretary of State, Allen Welsh Dulles, a Director of Central Intelligence, Eleanor Lansing Dulles, economist and diplomat. He is also the great-grandfather of the noted Catholic theologian, Avery Cardinal Dulles.

Sources

John W. Foster. Michael Devine, London: The Ohio University Press, 1981.

Preceded by Thomas H. Nelson	U.S. Minister to Mexico 1873-1880	Succeeded by Philip H. Morgan
Preceded by Edwin W. Stoughton	U.S. Minister to Russia 1880-1881	Succeeded by William H. Hunt
Preceded by Hannibal Hamlin	U.S. Minister to Spain 1883–1885	Succeeded by Jabez L. M. Curry
Preceded by James G. Blaine	U.S. Secretary of State 1892–1893	Succeeded by Walter Q. Gresham