Background
Ambrose was born on April 26, 1826, in Louisville, Jefferson County, Georgia, United States. He was the son of the wealthy planter Ambrose Wright and his wife Sarah Hammond.
Ambrose was born on April 26, 1826, in Louisville, Jefferson County, Georgia, United States. He was the son of the wealthy planter Ambrose Wright and his wife Sarah Hammond.
Ambrose read law under Herschel V. Johnson (who later became his brother-in-law) before being rejected by his family for marrying without their consent.
Admitted to the Dooly County, Georgia, bar in 1848, Ambrose Wright returned in 1850 to Jefferson County, having inherited part of his father's estate. In 1859, he moved to Augusta, Georgia, and the following year he was a presidential elector on the John Bell ticket.
After the presidential election, he became a secessionist, and he was a member of a committee that attempted to encourage the secession of Maryland. Wright enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army after the Civil War began and was elected colonel of the 3rd Georgia Regiment. In the fall of 1861, he was victorious in an engagement at Chiamicomico Island, North Carolina.
Following his performance at the battle of Seven Pines, he was promoted to brigadier general on June 3, 1862. He then fought with the Army of Northern Virginia in every major engagement from Malvern Hill to Petersburg. At the battle of Sharpsburg in September 1862, he was badly wounded but returned to action at Chancellorsville.
He guarded Manassas Gap during the retreat following the Battle of Gettysburg. Wright, who also had the strong support of Jefferson Davis, was elected president of the Georgia Senate in the fall of 1863. He influenced that body by his military performance, though he never took his seat.
On November 26, 1864, he was promoted to major general and transferred to a division command under General William Hardee at Savannah, Georgia. He saved the city of Augusta from sacking in late 1864 and later followed General J. E. Johnston’s army to North Carolina. Wright surrendered in North Carolina at the war’s end and was paroled in May 1865.
Impoverished after the war, he reopened his law practice in Augusta, where he also edited the Chronicle and Sentinel for some years. He tried unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination to the United States Senate in 1871.
Wright was an active Democrat who later joined the American party.
Wright's 1843 marriage to Mary Hubbell Savage ended with her death in 1854. In 1857 he married Caroline Couper Hazlehurst Huger. Ambrose was the father of seven children, but not all of them survived the infancy.
1838-1923
1844-1929
1848-1897
1850-1880
1854-1854
1854-1854
1862-1884
1864-1939
