Robert Augustus Toombs

Robert Augustus Toombs

Robert Augustus Toombs (born July 2, 1810 in Washington , Georgia ; † December 15, 1885 ibid) was an American politician and brigadier general in the Confederate Army in the American Civil War . He was one of the founding fathers of the Confederate States of America .

Life

Origin and career

Robert Augustus Toombs was the son of the cotton grower and officer of the Revolutionary Wars, Robert Toombs, and his wife Catherine, née. Huling. He rarely used his middle name, usually called Bob Toombs . With the death of his father, Bob became a half-orphan at the age of five. He attended a local private school, then Franklin College (later the University of Georgia ) in Athens , and graduated from Union College in Schenectady ( New York ) in 1828 . In 1829 he studied at the University of Virginia law and became 1830 in Georgia as a lawyer admitted.

On October 18, 1830, he married Julia DuBose, with whom he had been friends since childhood. The marriage had three children. Toombs became a very successful attorney and plantation owner in his home town of Wilkes County . His work as a lawyer - like that of his friend Alexander H. Stephens - was often interrupted by holding public office. It made him prominent and wealthy. He invested the profit from the legal profession in buying land and slaves in southwest Georgia.

Political career

After commanding a Georgia volunteer company in the war against the Creek Indians in 1836 , he went into politics. He was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1837 . From 1837 to 1840 and from 1842 to 1844 he was a member of parliament, where he became a staunch defender of the interests of the South. He soon left the Whig Party to join the Constitutional Union Party . From 1845 to 1853 he was a member of the United States House of Representatives . He negotiated Georgia support for the 1850 Compromise . He was elected to the US Senate in 1852 and re - elected in 1858. He joined the Democrats in 1856 and supported John C. Breckinridge in the presidential election in 1860 .

During the secession crisis , he initially supported the Crittenden Compromise from 1860 to 1861, but as a member of the Committee of Thirteen Senators for the Compromise , he realized that Republican members of Congress would not support a compromise that would allow slavery to continue.

Secession period

Because Toombs was in favor of Georgia's secession, he gave up his Senate mandate on February 4, 1861. As a member of the Georgia Secession Congregation, he drafted the manifesto justifying secession. He was elected as a deputy to the Provisional Confederate Congress in Montgomery . There he became chairman of the finance committee, in which he supported Christopher Memminger's ideas on taxation . It was his idea to mortgage the export duty on the sales of cotton for Confederate bonds. He was willing to give the central government extensive powers to create an effective army. On the other hand, he saw no reason to interfere with people's personal or property rights. He was responsible for the constitutional ban on using funds for domestic innovations. For example, he refused all money for the construction of the railway.

Toombs actively sought the presidency of the Confederate States . But he lost the election to Jefferson Davis and accepted the post of Secretary of State in the provisional Confederate government. He helped formulate the final Confederate constitution and was also responsible for ensuring that this constitution contained many conservative elements. Toombs soon felt overqualified and underutilized in his position. He also grew contempt for the way the CS President promoted and supported the Confederate war effort. Therefore he resigned on July 24, 1861 from his office. In November 1861, he was elected to the Confederate States Senate for Georgia , but only in the fifth round. Offended, he then renounced the mandate.

Toombs joined the Georgia Militia and was brigadier general in command of a brigade in Virginia . Its commanding officer became General Daniel Harvey Hill . When the latter criticized Toombs for his tactical ineptitude after the Battle of Malvern Hill (July 1, 1862) , Toombs challenged the general to a duel , which never took place. Toombs held up well in the Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862), but his left hand was injured. Because he was denied military promotion, he left the army on March 4, 1863 .

Toombs returned to Georgia and ran for the Confederation Senate in 1863, but lost the election to Herschel Vespasian Johnson in the third round . In 1864 he became General Inspector of the Georgia Militia. Most of his time he spent in constant arguments with the military and political leaders of the state. Towards the end of the war, he first lived at home in Georgia. But when he learned that he was under a US judicial arrest warrant for treason in connection with the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln , he vowed not to be caught alive. On May 12, 1865, a unit of US soldiers arrived at his residence to arrest him. While his wife was distracting the soldiers in front of the house, he fled through the back door of the house to a neighboring farm. He then fled across Georgia for months on a horse borrowed from a friend. In August 1865, Toombs' wife declared that her husband would only face the military authorities in the event of a pardon. But US President Andrew Johnson ordered that Toombs should be interned immediately if captured. When Toombs heard of this arrangement, he went to Mobile, Alabama. From there he fled on November 4, 1865, first to Cuba , then via London to Paris . He did not return home via Canada until 1867 , where he was acquitted of all charges. He never asked for an amnesty from Congress. Therefore, even as an "incorrigible" southerners, he did not get his citizenship back and could never again assume public office.

post war period

Robert Augustus Toombs, recorded after the end of the Civil War

At home, Toombs rebuilt his law firm in his hometown of Washington and once again became an influential figure in his state's society. He was an opponent of the government, which was led by political war profiteers from the north known as " carpet excavators, " and supported Rutherford B. Hayes in his election as US president, because he wanted the liberation of the south from what he considered to be an occupation felt through the north, promised. In 1879 he helped convince the Georgia Parliament to create a committee to regulate rail fares. The last years of his life were marked by blindness, old age and alcoholism (to which the death of his longtime friend Stephens and - after a long illness - his wife within a few weeks may have contributed). Toombs died in Washington on December 15, 1885, and was buried there in Rest Haven Cemetery.

Honors

In Georgia, that was formed from parts of Montgomery County , Emanuel County and Tattnall County , on August 18, 1905 newly established County Toombs County was called.

literature

• Jon L. Wakelyn: Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge ISBN 0-8071-0092-7
• Ezra J. Warner + W. Buck Yearns: Biographical Register of the Confederate Congress Greenwood Press, Westport, CT + London, GBR ISBN 0-8371-6124-X
• The Civil War Almanac World Almanac Publications, New York, NY ISBN 0-911818-36-7
• Rembert W. Patrick: Jefferson Davis and his cabinet Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1944

Web links

Commons : Robert Augustus Toombs  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Robert Augustus Toombs in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Biography (English)

• Robert Toombs in the database of Find a Grave (English)