John Brown Gordon

John Brown Gordon ((1832-02-06)February 6, 1832 – (1904-01-09)January 9, 1904) was an American politician, Confederate States Army general, attorney, slaveowner and planter. "One of Robert E. Lee's most trusted generals" by the end of the Civil War, according to historian Ed Bearss, he strongly opposed Reconstruction. A member of the Democratic Party, he was twice elected by the Georgia state legislature as a United States Senator (as was the practice at the time), serving from 1873 to 1880, and again from 1891 to 1897. He served two terms as the 53rd governor of Georgia from 1886 to 1890.

Early life

John Brown Gordon was of Scottish and English descent and was born on the farm of his parents Zachariah Gordon and his wife in Upson County, Georgia; he was the fourth of twelve children. Many Gordon family members had fought in the Revolutionary War. His family moved to Walker County, Georgia by 1840, where his father was recorded in the US census that year as owning a plantation with 18 slaves.

Gordon was a student at the University of Georgia, where he was a member of the Mystical 7 Society. He left before graduating to "read the law" in Atlanta, where he passed the bar examination.

Gordon and his father, Zachariah, invested in a series of coal mines in Tennessee and Georgia. He also practiced law. In 1854, Gordon married Rebecca "Fanny" Haralson, daughter of Hugh Anderson Haralson and his wife. They had a long marriage and six children.

In 1860, Gordon owned one slave, a 14-year-old girl. His father owned four slaves in that same census year.