Background
NORTHROP, Lucius Bellinger was born on September 8, 1811 in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, United States. Son of the notable and well-to-do family of Amos Bird and Claudia Margaret (Bellinger) Northrop.
farmer General military physician Bureaucrat
NORTHROP, Lucius Bellinger was born on September 8, 1811 in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, United States. Son of the notable and well-to-do family of Amos Bird and Claudia Margaret (Bellinger) Northrop.
Private school, northern university, United States Military Academy, medical school.
After graduating twenty-second in his class of thirty-three from the U.S. Military Academy in 1831, he was breveted second lieutenant and was sent west on Indian service, where he became a friend of Jefferson Davis. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1834 but retired from combat in 1839, after being wounded in the Seminole War. He was a Democrat and, originally Episcopal, became a Roman Catholic when he married Maria Euphenia Joanna De Bemalieu in 1841.
In 1842-1843, he served in the Subsistence Department in Washington. He also studied medicine at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia during the 1840s. In 1848, he was dropped from the army for practicing medicine on private patients, but when Jefferson Davis was named secretary of war that same year, he reinstated Northrop and promoted him to the rank of captain.
From 1853 to 1861, Northrop also practiced medicine in Charleston. After South Carolina seceded from the Union, Northrop resigned his army commission and volunteered for service in the Confederate Army. During the Civil War, he held the rank of colonel and was appointed commissary general by President Davis.
It was his duty to provide food for the military. He was bitterly criticized for being too close to Davis, for failing to coordinate the transportation system, and for his arbitrary use of impressment. He made additional enemies when he required commissary agents to be responsible to him.
As a result, the Confederate House voted for his removal, a position which was also supported by Genera] Robert E. Lee. He left office voluntarily eafly in 1865 and held no further duty in the Confederacy. In his defense, it could be argued that Northrop was the victim of a limited transportation system and crop growing area in the early days of the war and of the blockade in the later days.
After the war ended, he was arrested in Richmond but was later released. Northrop then farmed near Charlottesville, Virginia, from 1867 until 1890.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.
Spouse Maria Euphenia Joanna De Bemalieu.