Lafayette Sabine Foster (1806-1880), a Connecticut attorney and newspaper editor, served in the Connecticut House of Representatives, 1839-1840, 1846-1848, and 1854. He was an unsuccessful Whig nominee for Connecticut governor in 1850 and 1851. He served as mayor of Norwich Connecticut, 1851-1852, and was elected to the United States Senate in 1854 and 1860, serving as president pro tempore of the Senate from 1865 to 1867. Following his loss in the 1866 election, Foster took a position as professor of law at Yale College in 1869, and was again elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives the following year. He resigned to assume a seat on the Connecticut Supreme Court; he resigned from the court and from public service in 1876.

Fitz John Porter (1822-1901), a native of New Hampshire, graduated from the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 1845. While serving in the Mexcian-American War in 1847, he was wounded at Chapultepec, and breveted a major. Following the war, he served on the staff at West Point from 1849 to 1855, then was posted to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, as assistant adjutant general in the Department of the West. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Porter initially served as chief of staff and assistant adjutant general for the Department of Pennsylvania, then was appointed colonel of the 15th U. S. Infantry on May 14, 1861. In August, Porter was promoted to brigadier general and given a divisional command within the Army of the Potomac. Following his performance during the Peninsula Campaign, Porter was promoted to major general on July 4, 1862. Just a few weeks later, General John Pope blamed the Union Army's loss at the Second Battle of Bull Run on Porter, and Porter was relieved of command and court-martialed in November. The following January, he was dismissed from the army. He would be exonerated and restored to the army roll as a colonel in 1886.