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Confederate States Senator from Texas
In office February 18, 1862 – May 10, 1865
Preceded by	Constituency established
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States from Texas
In office February 4, 1861 – February 17, 1862
Preceded by	Constituency established
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
United States Senator from Texas
In office December 5, 1859 – March 23, 1861
Preceded by	Matthias Ward
Succeeded by	James Flanagan (1870)
Member of the Texas Senate from the 8th district
In office November 7, 1857 – December 7, 1859
Preceded by	William Scott
Succeeded by	E. A. Blanch

Personal details
Born	Louis Trezevant Wigfall (1816-04-21)April 21, 1816 Edgefield, South Carolina, U.S.
Died	February 18, 1874(1874-02-18) (aged 57) Galveston, Texas, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Charlotte Cross (m. 1841)
Education	University of Virginia University of South Carolina (BA)
Military service
Allegiance	Confederate States
Branch/service	Confederate States Army
Years of service	1861–1862
Rank	Brigadier General
Battles/wars	American Civil War

Louis Trezevant Wigfall (April 21, 1816 – February 18, 1874) was an American politician who served as a Confederate States Senator from Texas from 1862 to 1865. He was among a group of leading secessionists known as Fire-Eaters, advocating the preservation and expansion of an aristocratic agricultural society based on slave labor. He briefly served as a Confederate Brigadier General of the Texas Brigade at the outset of the American Civil War before taking his seat in the Confederate Senate. Wigfall's reputation for oratory and hard-drinking, along with a combative nature and high-minded sense of personal honor, made him one of the more imposing political figures of his time. He was also a slave owner.

Early life and career
American Civil War
- Brigade commander
- Confederate States Senator
Later life
In popular culture
See also

Early life and career

Youth

Wigfall was born on a plantation near Edgefield, South Carolina, to Levi Durant and Eliza Thomson Wigfall. His father, who died in 1818, was a successful Charleston merchant before moving to Edgefield. His mother was of the French Huguenot Trezavant family. She died when young Louis was 13. An older brother, Hamden, was killed in a duel. Another, Arthur, became a bishop in the Episcopal Church.

Tutored by a guardian until 1834, he then spent a year at Rice Creek Springs School, a military academy near Columbia, South Carolina, for children of elite aristocrats. He then entered the University of Virginia. A perceived insult by another student prompted the first of many dueling challenges he would make, but the affair was resolved peaceably.

In 1836 he entered South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) to complete his studies, but his attendance was erratic. He developed an interest in the law, participated in the Euphradian Society, and wrote epistles on student rights. Most of his time however, was spent at off-campus taverns rather than at his studies. He abandoned academics altogether for three months to fight in the Second Seminole War in Florida, achieving the rank of Lieutenant of volunteers. Despite these distractions he managed to graduate in 1837. A fellow graduate considered to be his closest friend was John Lawrence Manning, who would later become governor of South Carolina.

In 1839 Wigfall returned to Edgefield and took over his brother's law practice. Having squandered his inheritance, and with a proclivity for drinking and gambling, he accumulated debts. He borrowed from friends to maintain a freewheeling lifestyle, including from his future bride. "Mere office business" as an upcountry lawyer did not suit his temperament and sense of purpose, nor prove to be as profitable as he had hoped.

Personal life

In 1841 Wigfall married his second cousin, Charlotte Maria Cross, daughter of the prominent Charlestown lawyer and former South Carolina State Controller, Col. George Warren Cross, and his wife, Frances Maria Halsey.

Their Children were:

Francis Halsey Wigfall.
Louise Sophie Wigfall, Civil War diarist.
Mary Frances (Fanny) Wigfall.

Gone to Texas

Arriving in Texas in 1848, Wigfall joined William B. Ochiltree's law practice at Nacogdoches, Texas, then settled in Marshall, Texas. He quickly dove back into politics, serving in the Texas House of Representatives from 1849 to 1850, and in the Texas Senate from 1857 to 1860. He became a staunch political opponent of Sam Houston. When Houston ran for governor in 1857, Wigfall followed him on the campaign trail, attacking his congressional record at each of Houston's stops, and accused Houston of being a traitor to the South. He claimed that Houston had ambitions for a presidential nomination and courted the support of Northern abolitionists.

He organized state Democrats to resist the Know Nothing party, but with their defeat his radical views descended in the estimation of Democratic moderates. John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry propelled him and his radical views back to prominence in the state.

United States Senator

The Texas legislature elected Wigfall to the United States Senate in 1859 as a Democrat to the 36th United States Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of James Pinckney Henderson. Matthias Ward was appointed to the Senate following Henderson's death and served from September 27, 1858, until Wigfall was elected and sworn in on December 5, 1859. Wigfall served until March 23, 1861, when he withdrew. He was expelled from the Senate on July 11, 1861, for support of the rebellion. He also served as a member of the Texas delegation to the Provisional Confederate Congress, which formed the provisional government of the Confederacy, and which selected Jefferson Davis as its president. Wigfall had continued to hold his seat after Texas had seceded on February 1, 1861, and was admitted to the Provisional Confederate Congress on March 2, 1861, exhorting the rightness of the Southern cause and berating his Northern colleagues whether on the floor of the Senate or in Capitol Hill saloons. During this time in Washington, he spied on Federal preparations for the coming conflict, secured weapons for delivery south, and upon expulsion by his fellow Senators, he went to Baltimore, Maryland and recruited soldiers for the new Confederacy before traveling to the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia.

American Civil War

Louis Wigfall in 1861

In the days leading up to the start of hostilities, Wigfall advocated an attack on Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens in Florida to prompt Virginia and other upper southern slave states to join the Confederacy. In January 1865, Wigfall stated his reasons for having supported the Confederacy, namely, opposition to African American equality:

Sir, I wish to live in no country where the man who blacks my boots or curries my horse is my equal.

He arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, as the siege of Fort Sumter commenced. According to diarist Mary Chestnut, he was the only "thoroughly happy person I see." While serving as an aide to General Beauregard during the bombardment of Fort Sumter, and without authorization, he rowed a skiff out to the island fort and demanded its surrender from Major Robert Anderson. The incident was widely reported in the newspapers furthering his celebrity, but the story redacted the important detail that Wigfall had not spoken to Beauregard in two days. When the authorized emissaries arrived at the fort, they were dismayed upon learning that Wigfall had granted terms to Anderson that Beauregard had already rejected.

Brigade commander

With his newfound celebrity Wigfall secured an appointment to full colonel of the 1st Texas Infantry Regiment, and a rapid promotion thereafter to brigadier general of the "Texas Brigade" in the Confederate Army. He took up residence near his encamped troops in a tavern at Dumfries, Virginia, during the winter of 1861–1862, where he would frequently call the men to arms at midnight, imagining a Federal invasion. His nervousness was blamed on his fondness for whiskey and hard cider. He resigned his commission in February 1862 to take a seat in the Confederate Senate, and was replaced by John Bell Hood.

Confederate States Senator

At the beginning of the war Wigfall was a close friend of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Like political alliances throughout his career, he would first support then split with Davis as the war progressed. Davis supported an increasingly strong national government, while Wigfall, forever an advocate of states rights, moved to block the creation of the Confederate Supreme Court, fearing Davis' appointments would rule against the states. Wigfall also challenged Davis, a West Point graduate and former United States Secretary of War, on many of his military-related policies, citing his own military experience in the Seminole Wars. Wigfall was a close friend of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston and frequently proposed legislation on the general's behalf. He was also an early proponent of making Robert E. Lee commander of all Confederate armies.

Later life

At the conclusion of hostilities, Wigfall escaped back to Texas in the company of Texas troops with a forged parole, then went to London in 1866 as an exile, where he intrigued to foment trouble between Britain and the United States. He bought a mine in Clear Creek, Colorado, returning to the United States in 1870. He lived for a while in Baltimore, Maryland, and was in Galveston, Texas, in January, 1874. He died a month later of "apoplexy" and is buried there in the Episcopal cemetery.

In popular culture

In the 1992 alternate history/science fiction novel The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove, Senator Wigfall appears as a character. The book uses real quotes of Wigfall.

In the historical novel The Lincoln Special by Peg A. Lamphier, Wigfall appears as a major character and villain with some creative dramatization. The novel as a whole is about Kate Warne and the Pinkerton Detective Agency investigating the Baltimore Plot against Lincoln.