Roger Atkinson PRYOR

Background

PRYOR, Roger Atkinson was born on July 19, 1828 in Petersburg, Dinwiddie County, Virginia, United States, United States. Son of the Presbyterian minister Theodorick Bland Pryor and his wife Lucy Eppes (Atkinson).

Education

Graduate Hampden-Sidney College, 1845 (Doctor of Laws), University of Virginia, 1848.

Career

He attended the Classical Academy of Petersburg, graduated first in his class at Hampden-Sidney College in 1845, and received his law degree from the University of Virginia Law School in 1848. The following year, he was admitted to the Virginia bar but soon abandoned his practice because of ill health. On November 8, 1848, he married Sara A. Rice, the future author of Reminiscences of Peace and War (1904).

They had seven children. Pryor was a Democrat and a radical secessionist. He joined the staff of the Washington, D.C., Union in 1852 and of the Richmond Enquirer in 1853.

He became well-known for his opposition to the Know-Nothing party. From 1854 to 1857, he served as special U.S. minister to Greece. Upon his return, he joined the staff of the ultra-secessionist newspaper, The South, in Washington, D.C., and also worked on the Washington States.

From 1859 to 1861, he was a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was a delegate to the Charleston Democratic convention in 1860 and supported Breckinridge for president. After urging the attack on Fort Sumter, he resigned from the U.S. Congress on March 3, 1861, and was elected to the provisional and the first permanent Confederate House of Representatives.

He served on the Military Affairs and special committees but resigned from Congress in April 1862. He also had a distinguished military career, serving as colonel at the battles of Yorktown and Williamsburg and as brigadier general at Seven Pines, Gaines’ Mill, Frayser’s Farm, Second Manassas, Harper’s Ferry, and Sharpsburg. He was promoted to brigadier general on April 16, 1862, but resigned as general on August 26, 1863, because he had been reassigned and left without a command.

He became a special courier without rank during 1864 and was captured at Petersburg in November 1864. Pryor was confined at Fort Lafayette until the end of the war. After the war, he moved to New York and urged Southern acquiescence toward the Reconstruction government while on the staff of the New York Daily News.

He practiced law in New York City from 1866 to 1890, during which time he also served as a Democratic judge of the state Court of Common Pleas from 1890 to 1894 and on the state Supreme Court from 1894 to 1899.

Religion

"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.

Politics

Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.

Membership

Member 36th Congress (1859-1861), reëlected to 37th Congress, but did not serve. Member 1st Confederate States Congress, 1862.

Connections

Married Sara Agnes Rice, November 8, 1848.

Father:

Review Theodorick Bland Pryor

Mother:

Lucy (Atkinson) Pryor

Spouse:

Sara Agnes Rice