Former Mexican War general, Mississippi governor, and current U.S. congressman, John Anthony Quitman dies on his plantation near Natchez, Mississippi. He is said to be a victim of the notorious "National Hotel Disease" that had recently afflicted Washington, D.C. Though born in New York, Quitman has became a wealthy slave-owner and a tireless advocate of southern slates rights and slave power influence to the point of advocating the re-opening of the Atlantic slave trade and financing filibustering efforts in the Caribbean. (By John Osborne)