Background
GORDON, John Brown was born on February 6, 1832 in Upson County, Georgia, United States, United States. Son of the Reverend Zachariah Herndon Gordon and his wife Malinda (Cox).
Businessman General lawyer military politician
GORDON, John Brown was born on February 6, 1832 in Upson County, Georgia, United States, United States. Son of the Reverend Zachariah Herndon Gordon and his wife Malinda (Cox).
Private school, southern university.
Gordon, whose father’s family was from North Carolina, was a first cousin of General James B. Gordon. He was privately educated at Pleasant Green Academy, attended Franklin College (later the University of Georgia) until 1852, was admitted to the bar the following year, and began a law practice in Atlanta in 1854. Gordon was a Baptist and a Whig who became a Democrat in the late 1850s.
He married Fanny Rebecca Harelson on September 18,1854. They had three sons and three daughters. Gordon also assisted his father in an Alabama coal mining enterprise before the Civil War.
He developed a friendship with William Lowndes Yancey and became a strong secessionist. At the beginning of the war, Gordon volunteered as a captain in the “Raccoon Roughs,” an Alabama company. In December 1861, he became a lieutenant colonel in the 6th Alabama Regiment of Rodes’ Brigade.
At the battle of Seven Pines in late spring 1862, he took over and led the charge after Rodes was wounded. He participated in the battle of Malvern Hill during the Seven Days and was wounded five times in the battle of Sharpsburg. After his recovery, he was promoted to brigadier general on November 1, 1862.
His Georgia brigade fought at the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg in 1863. He saw service along the Rapidan in November of that year, but his great fame began with the Wilderness campaign in the spring of 1864. After leading Early’s Division at the “Bloody Angle’ ’ of Spotsylvania Court House, he was promoted to major general on May 14, 1864.
In June of that year, he fought at Cold Harbor. He fought in Early’s Valley campaign of 1864 at Monocacy in July and at Cedar Creek in October. He commanded the 2nd Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia before Petersburg, where he held the last of the lines.
In March 1865, he planned and led the assault on Fort Stedman near Petersburg, and he was part of the last charge at Appomattox. He surrendered at Appomattox and was soon paroled. After the war, he practiced law in Atlanta.
He was a delegate to the National Union convention in 1866 and an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia in 1868. From 1873 to 1880, he served in the U.S. Senate, winning the seat formerly held by Alexander H. Stephens. He resigned this post to help build the Georgia Pacific Railroad and to assume a position with the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in 1880.
From 1886 to 1890, he was governor of Georgia, and he returned to the U.S. Senate from 1891 to 1897. Gordon published his Reminiscences of Civil War (1903) prior to his death on January 9, 1904, in Miami, Florida.
"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 Fanny Rebecca Harelson.
