William Preston (October 16, 1816 – September 21, 1887) was an American lawyer, politician, and ambassador. He also was a brigadier general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War.
Although his home state of Kentucky did not secede from the Union, Preston would serve the South. In November 1861, the provisional government for Kentucky appointed he, Henry C. Burnett and William E. Simms as commissioners to treat with the Confederates States government for the admission of Kentucky into the Confederacy.[1] Shortly thereafter, Preston was made a colonel and became volunteer aide-de-camp to his brother-in-law, Albert Sidney Johnston, who then had his Army of Central Kentucky quartered at Bowling Green.
Preston subsequently attained the rank of brigadier general in 1862. He was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the Confederacy to Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico in 1864.
After the war, he again served as a member of the Kentucky State House of Representatives in 1868 and 1869.
William Preston died in Louisville and was interred in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.
^The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, 1880-1901), Series 1, v. 1, pp. 743-47.