Background
BRAGG, Thomas was born in 1810 in Warrenton, North Carolina, United States, United States. Son of the skilled carpenter and contractor Thomas and his wife Margaret (Crossland) Bragg.
BRAGG, Thomas was born in 1810 in Warrenton, North Carolina, United States, United States. Son of the skilled carpenter and contractor Thomas and his wife Margaret (Crossland) Bragg.
Private school.
After attending Warrenton Academy and the military academy of Middletown, Connecticut, he was admitted to the bar in 1833. In the same year, he began the practice of law in Jackson, North Carolina. He married Isabelle M. Cuthbert in October 1837.
A lifelong Democrat and staunch Presbyterian, Bragg was elected to the state legislature in 1842 and 1844. In 1845, he served as prosecuting attorney for Northampton County. As governor of his state from 1855 to 1859 and as U.S. senator from 1859 to 1861, he was a conservative secessionist who believed that the South could not establish its independence.
He resigned from the Senate after North Carolina seceded. Bragg was appointed aide to the governor of North Carolina after war broke out. As attorney general in the Confederate cabinet from November21, 1861, to March 18, 1862, he was close to President Davis.
He defended civilian rights and held that the Confederate government was financially liable for all materials used by the army. A diligent and meticulous man, he carefully reorganized the department to make it more responsive to state needs. He also favored the establishment of a Confederate supreme court.
Bragg resigned his office on March 18,1862, to return to North Carolina, where he sought to stop the peace movement which had begun during 1862. Bragg also attempted to effect a reconciliation between President Davis and Governor Zebulon Vance. He helped edit the once unionist State Journal during 1864.
Bragg ably served the Confederate interests at the end of the war and effected a just settlement of federal properties in the hands of Southerners. In 1865, when the war had ended, he returned to his law practice in Raleigh. Bragg helped to reorganize the state government during the late 1860s.
He also was a lawyer for the prosecution in the trial of Governor William W. Holden in 1870.
"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.
Member North Carolina Legislature, 1842-1843. Member United States Senate from North Carolina, 1859-July 1861.
Married Isabella Cuthbert, October 4, 1837.