Born in 1828 in Virginia, Claiborne completed his medical studies in Philadelphia in 1851. That same year, he estasblished a practice in Petersburg and served later as a House of Delegates representative and senator in the Virginia state government. Claiborne's first wife, Sara Joseph Alston, died shortly after the war. He remarried and raised another family with his second wife, Annie Leslie Watson. He continued to practice in Petersburg and died in 1905.