16700 Old Frederick Rd, Mt Airy, MD 21771, United States
Watts attended Mount Airy Academy.
Charlottesville, VA, United States
Watts attended the University of Virginia and graduated in 1839.
Charlottesville, VA, United States
Watts attended the University of Virginia and graduated in 1839.
16700 Old Frederick Rd, Mt Airy, MD 21771, United States
Watts attended Mount Airy Academy.
Thomas Hill Watts was born in Alabama Territory not far from the present town of Greenville in that part of the Creek Indian cession which was later organized into Butler County. He was the son of Catherine Prudence Hill and John Hughes Watts, a prosperous planter, and the great-great-grandson of Francis Watts, possibly of Welsh and English stock, who was in Prince William County in 1749.
Watts attended Mount Airy Academy. He then concluded a bargain with his father to accept money for education in lieu of any further claim upon the family estate. With this money, he attended the University of Virginia and graduated in 1839.
Thomas Hill Watts was admitted to the bar in 1841.
He became a successful lawyer in Greenville and soon entered politics. Watts represented Butler County in the Alabama legislature in 1842, 1844, and 1845. In 1846, he moved his law practice to Montgomery, Alabama.
In 1847, 1849, and 1853, he represented Montgomery County in the Alabama Senate. After serving as an elector for Zachary Taylor in 1848, he became a Know-Nothing and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1856. In 1860, he supported John Bell for the presidency and advocated remaining in the Union, but after Lincoln’s election he became a secessionist, and by November 1860, he was a supporter of William Lowndes Yancey.
As a delegate to the Alabama secession convention, he served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee and voted for secession. After losing a race to John Shorter for governor of the state, he served as colonel of the 17th Alabama Infantry at Pensacola and Corinth. From March 17, 1862, to October 1, 1863, Watts was attorney general in the Davis cabinet.
His task was to supervise court proceedings and to audit accounts. He also wrote over one hundred legal opinions for other cabinet members and congressmen. He opposed military interference with the civil jurisdiction of the courts.
He lobbied to no avail for the Congress to provide for a supreme court. He resigned as attorney general to become governor of Alabama, feeling closer to his state than to the Confederate government. He was elected and served as governor from December 1863 until the end of the war.
As governor, Watts defended states’ rights and opposed the encroachment of Richmond on his powers. At the end of the war, he was imprisoned in the North. He had been wealthy before the war, but federal troops had destroyed all of his property and freed his two hundred slaves.
Upon his release, he returned to his Montgomery law practice.
In 1880-1881, he represented Montgomery in the Alabama legislature, and in 1889-1890, he served as president of the Alabama bar.
Thomas Hill Watts was named to succeed Bragg as attorney general. He served more than a year, and he wrote 99 opinions on Martial Law, reorganization of the military under Conscription, pay allowances, rights of prisoners of war, treasonable offenses, and many other issues related to military service and the war.
Watts worked for the Baptist church prior to his death.
Politically, Watts adopted a pro-Union stance during the 1850s, but subsequent developments made the depth of his beliefs questionable, for on the eve of the Civil War he played an important role in the secession of Alabama, and was one of the signers of the secession ordinance. Defeated by John Gill Shorter in an 1861 bid for governor, Watts organized the 17th Regiment Alabama Infantry but resigned later to become attorney general in President Jefferson Davis' cabinet.
Thomas had six children by his January 10, 1841, marriage to Eliza Brown Allen, who died in 1873 leaving ten children. In September 1875 he married his second wife, Ellen Noyes Jackson.
1781-1841
1797-1866
1825-1873
1825-1904
1820-1855
1821-1850
1826-1912
1828-1860
1830-1850
1832-1852
1834-1906
1836-1858
1839-1881
1841-1858
1842-1922
1844-1913
1846-1913
1848-1862
1853-1905
1855-1856
1857-1918
1860-1875
1863-1866
1864-1929
