Robert Ransom Jr. (February 12, 1828 – January 14, 1892) was a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. His brother Matt W. Ransom was also a Confederate general officer and U.S. Senator. Ransom was born in Warren County, North Carolina to Robert Ransom Sr. and Priscilla Whitaker Ransom. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1850. Ransom was assigned to the…
Which Have Impelled Them to Unite Their Fortunes With Those of the Confederate States of America When circumstances beyond their control compel one people to sever the ties which have long existed between them and another state or confederacy and to contract new alliances and establish new relations for the security of their rights and…
Most famous for serving as the vice president of the Confederacy during the Civil War (1861-65), Alexander Hamilton Stephens was a near-constant force in state and national politics for a half-century. Born near Crawfordville, in Taliaferro County, on February 11, 1812, to Margaret Grier and Andrew Baskins Stephens, the young Stephens was orphaned at fourteen, which intensified his already melancholic disposition. He graduated from Franklin College (later the University of Georgia) in 1832 and gained admittance to the bar two years later. There followed a steady and uninterrupted rise to political prominence.
Daniel Smith Donelson (June 23, 1801 – April 17, 1863) was a Tennessee politician and soldier. The historic river port of Fort Donelson was named for him as a Brigadier in the Tennessee militia, early in the American Civil War, in which he went on to serve as a Confederate general, notably at Perryville and…
Alexander Peter Stewart “Old Straight” (October 2, 1821 – August 30, 1908) was a career United States Army officer, college professor, and general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Early life and career Stewart was born in Rogersville, Tennessee. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1842 (12th of 56 cadets) and…
The hard-fighting brigade of Kentucky Confederates etched a remarkable chapter in Civil War history as the ultimate example of divided loyalties. On April 15, 1861, three days after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteer troops. Their purpose was to augment the Federal Army that would put…
George Wythe Randolph was a lawyer, Confederate general, and, briefly, Confederate secretary of war during the American Civil War (1861–1865). The grandson of former U.S. president Thomas Jefferson, Randolph hailed from an elite Virginia family but largely shunned public life until John Brown‘s raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. He supported secession, founded the Richmond…
Robert Hopkins Hatton (November 2, 1826 – May 31, 1862) was a lawyer, politician, United States Congressman, and Confederate officer during the American Civil War.
John Tyler is famous for being the first vice president in the history of the United States to assume the full power of the presidency upon the death of a sitting president. In what became known as the “Tyler Precedent”, John Tyler’s rise to the presidency happened rather fortuitously, as some may describe. It is…
Among the 5,000 grave markers for Confederate soldiers in the Soldier’s Rest section of Cedar Hill Cemetery in Vicksburg, Mississippi, one pays tribute to Old Douglas, the camel of the 43rd Mississippi Infantry, Company A, nicknamed “The Camel Regiment.” The Confederate States of America was established in February 1861. It is not known how Douglas,…
