Edmund Winston Pettus (July 6, 1821 – July 27, 1907) was an American lawyer, politician and military officer who represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1897 to 1907. He served as a senior officer of the Confederate States Army, commanding infantry in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. After the war, he was Grand Dragon, or supreme leader, of the Ku Klux Klan, which terrorized and often killed African Americans.<!-- (see talk) – an assertion that's questioned by some historians. -->
A bridge across the Alabama River in Selma, built in 1940, was named after him. According to Smithsonian, "The bridge was named for him, in part, to memorialize his history, of restraining and imprisoning African Americans in their quest for freedom after the Civil War". He was the youngest of nine children of John Pettus and Alice Taylor Winston, a brother of John J. Pettus, and a distant cousin of Jefferson Davis. Pettus was educated in local public schools, and later graduated from Clinton College located in Smith County, Tennessee.
Pettus then studied law under William Cooper in Tuscumbia, Alabama and was admitted to the bar in 1842. Shortly afterward, he settled in Gainesville and began practicing as a lawyer. On June 27, 1844, Pettus married Mary L. Chapman, with whom he had three sons, two of whom died in infancy, and two daughters.
During the Mexican–American War in 1846–48, Pettus served as a lieutenant with the Alabama Volunteers, and after the end of hostilities he moved to California.
By 1853, he returned to Alabama, serving again in the seventh circuit as solicitor. He was appointed a judge in that circuit in 1855 until resigning in 1858. Pettus then relocated to the now extinct town of Cahaba
==American Civil War==<!-- EDITORS NOTE: Please do not add photographs to this section. It would quickly become too unwieldy. Thank you. -->
thumb|left|upright|Pettus in uniform, [[Wiktionary:circa|ca. 1863]]
In 1861, Pettus, an enthusiastic champion of the Confederate cause and of slavery, was a Democratic Party delegate to the secession convention in Mississippi, where his brother John was serving as governor. Pettus helped organize the 20th Alabama Infantry, and was elected as one of its first officers. and on November 3 he was given brigade command in the Army of Tennessee.
Pettus and his command took part in the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, fighting in the battles of Kennesaw Mountain on June 27, Atlanta on July 22, and Jonesborough from August 31 to September 1. During the 1865 Campaign of the Carolinas, Pettus was sent to defend Columbia, South Carolina, and fought at Bentonville from March 19–21.
In 2020, Pettus’ great-great-granddaughter Caroline Randall Williams, Vanderbilt University writer-in-residence, proposed renaming the bridge after John Lewis because "We name things after honorable Americans to commemorate their legacies. That bridge is named after a treasonous American who cultivated and prospered from systems of degradation and oppression before and after the Civil War."
Writing in the New York Times, Williams argued:
At least one other Pettus descendant, Dave Pettus, supports renaming the bridge "Bloody Sunday Bridge."
See also
- List of Confederate States Army generals
- List of members of the United States Congress who died in office (1900–1949)
References
Notes
Bibliography
- Eicher (1), David J., The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War, Simon & Schuster, 2001, .
- Eicher (2), John H., and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. .
- Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts On File, 1988. .
- Wakelyn, Jon L., Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy, Greenwood Press, 1977, .
- Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. .
- Wright, Marcus J., General Officers of the Confederate Army: Officers of the Executive Departments of the Confederate States, Members of the Confederate Congress by States. Mattituck, NY: J. M. Carroll & Co., 1983. . First published 1911 by Neale Publishing Co.
External links
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- Edmund Pettus and John Tyler Morgan, late senators from Alabama, Memorial addresses delivered in the House of Representatives and Senate frontispiece 1909
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