Background
Felix Ives Batson was born on September 6, 1819, in Dickson County, Tennessee, United States. At an early age, he moved to Humphreys County, where he lived near Waverly.
Felix Ives Batson was born on September 6, 1819, in Dickson County, Tennessee, United States. At an early age, he moved to Humphreys County, where he lived near Waverly.
It may be assumed that Felix gained his early education in the local schools. It is not known where he studied law.
Felix Ives Batson was admitted to the bar in 1841 and was one of the first attorneys in Johnson County. From 1853 to 1858 he was a circuit judge for the Fourth Judicial Circuit of Arkansas. In 1858 he served as a justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, a position he resigned in 1860.
In November 1861, Felix Batson won the election to the First Regular Congress. He won reelection in 1863, although he was absent from Congress from December 1863, until November 1864, missing two entire sessions.
Batson as a delegate to Arkansas Secession Convention prior to the Civil War in 1861 and voted for secession. During the American Civil War, he represented the First Congressional District of northwest Arkansas in the First Confederate Congress and the Second Confederate Congress House of Representatives.
In the first Congress, Batson served on the Inauguration, Military Affairs, and Territories and Public Lands committees. During the Second Congress, he served on the Judiciary Committee.
After the war, Batson returned to Clarksville to practice law for the few years that were left to him.
Felix Ives Batson represented Arkansas in the First Confederate Congress and the Second Confederate Congress. He defeated well-known Arkansas politician Hugh French Thomason to win the election in November 1861.
In 1898 Emma Batson Cravens organized Chapter 221 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and named the chapter after her father.
Batson was an early secessionist and as a member of both the March and May 1861, conventions he voted for disunion.
He was a loyal supporter of the Davis administration, and he opposed General Edmund Kirby Smith's desire to remove state troops from Arkansas.
During 1862 and 1863 when much of Arkansas was still in Confederate hands, Felix Ives Batson tried to reserve for it a fair number of state employees and local defense troops. During the Second Confederate Congress, when the state was largely overrun by the enemy, his only significant difference of opinion with the administration was his opposition to arming the slaves.
Felix Ives Batson married Charnelcy Jean Batson. Their only daughter was Emma Batson Cravens.
