Background
George Washington Logan was born on February 22, 1815, in Chimney Rock, North Carolina, United States. He was the son of John and Martha Harton Logan.
congressman editor farmer judge lawyer
George Washington Logan was born on February 22, 1815, in Chimney Rock, North Carolina, United States. He was the son of John and Martha Harton Logan.
George Washington Logan received a fair education from the local academies and from tutoring at home.
George Washington Logan studied law, was admitted to the North Carolina Bar, and began a practice in Rutherfordton, North Carolina. He also dealt in real estate and farmed.
In 1838-1839, he was a clerk and master inequity in the local court. From 1841 to 1849, he was a clerk of the county court, and in 1855-1856, he was county solicitor.
In 1858, he was the editor of the Rutherford Engineer. Although he was a staunch unionist, Logan supported the Confederate cause. He had no role in the early years of the Civil War.
In 1863, he was elected to the second Confederate House as a peace candidate by the Red String Organization, a band of war deserters from the Rutherfordton area whose platform was hostility to President Davis. They were a small farmer class who lacked full social recognition and were thought to base their political views on envy and hatred of higher social classes. In Congress, Logan worked on proposals for peace, based on state action.
He served on the Printing and Ordnance and Ordnance Stores Committees. He and his allies returned to the unionist cause before the end of the war, preparing for power once the war had ended. When the war ended, Logan became a lieutenant of William W. Holden, joined the Republican party, and was a delegate to the state convention in 1865.
In 1866, George Washington Logan served in the state legislature, and he was a Superior Court judge from 1868 until his defeat in 1874. He knew only a little about the law, however, and was an incompetent judge. Even the Republicans deserted him.
A Whig in politics, Logan was a staunch Unionist during the secession crisis. He adhered to this position during the Civil War and it determined the remainder of his political career. Opponents identified him, probably correctly, as a leader of the pro-Union Red String order, which was widespread in western North Carolina during the latter part of the war. He was elected to the Confederate Congress in 1863 as an avowed peace candidate and an opponent of the Davis administration. Although Logan took no leading part in congressional deliberations, his voting record in 1864–65 bore out his antiwar and anti-Confederate stance.
While serving in the North Carolina State Legislature from 1866 to 1868 he became a member of the Republican Party.
In 1870, George Washington Logan was a member of the Rutherfordton City Council. He was part of a faction that controlled the Star, a newspaper hostile to the Ku Klux Klan.
George Washington Logan had five children by his marriage to Amelia Dovey Wilson, and after her death, he married Mary Elizabeth Cabiness.