Robert Ludwell Yates Peyton was an American politician. He was a Confederate States Senator from Missouri.
Background
Robert Ludwell Yates Peyton was born on February 8, 1822, in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. He was the son of Townshend Dade and Sarah Yates Peyton. His father liberated the family's slaves following the Nat Turner insurrection, and the family moved to Ohio.
Education
Robert Peyton took a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1840.
In 1847-1848, Robert Ludwell Yates Peyton came to Harrisonville, Cass County, Missouri, where he practiced law and became active in local politics. Peyton ran unsuccessfully for circuit attorney of the Sixth Circuit and for the state legislature in 1855. In 1858, he was elected to the State Senate and began a law partnership with R.O. Boggess of Kansas City.
When the Civil War began, he was a colonel of the Missouri State Guards. Peyton served in the provisional Confederate Congress and was elected to the first Confederate Senate by the Missouri legislature at Neosha.
In the Senate, he served on the Claims, Commerce, Engrossment and Enrollment, and Indian Affairs Committees, and on the special committee to investigate the management of the Navy Department. In his military capacity, Peyton served in the 3rd Cavalry Regiment under General Sterling Price and fought in sixty engagements before contracting malaria around Vicksburg.
Achievements
Politics
Robert Ludwell Yates Peyton was a states' rights Democrat and a secessionist of the John C. Calhoun school.
Personality
Peyton was quite vocal and more than capable of molding his listeners' opinions and prejudices. He was not shy about speaking in public; over a period of years, his oratory exerted a significant influence in western Missouri.
Connections
Peyton, who never married, was at one time engaged to Martha Sterling Price, a daughter of Governor Sterling Price of Missouri.