Background
Rufus King was born on May 22, 1830, in Tipton County, Tennessee, United States. He was the son of Rufus King and Barbara Hill Garland and brother of Augustus Hill Garland.
congressman farmer lawyer politician
Rufus King was born on May 22, 1830, in Tipton County, Tennessee, United States. He was the son of Rufus King and Barbara Hill Garland and brother of Augustus Hill Garland.
Garland was a lawyer and a farmer. He was also a Methodist preacher during the 1850s. He was a unionist in the Arkansas secession convention of 1861, but he shifted to secession when he became convinced that equal rights were no longer protected in Washington. He represented Arkansas in the second Confederate House.
He volunteered for duty when the war began and served in the Army of Tennessee. He was a colonel in the Arkansas campaigns of 1863. When Arkansas was overrun by Union troops and government almost disappeared, Garland was the only congressman in the Confederate Congress during 1864 who consistently opposed the Davis Administration.
Rufus Garland was an active member of the Committee on Ways and Means. After the war, he returned to his law practice, continued as an itinerant preacher, and lost a bid for governor as a Greenback candidate in 1882.
Rufus was a Methodist preacher during the 1850s.
Garland was a Whig who became a Democrat in 1860.
Rufus married Isabelle Walker, daughter of a wealthy farmer in Hempstead County, Arkansas. They had no children.