Florida. Governor (1857-1861 : Perry)

Attorney, General, C.S.A., Governor.

Edward Perry attended Yale University, but left in 1852 before receiving a degree; taught school and studied law in Georgia and Alabama; and was admitted to the bar in Montgomery, Ala. in 1857. He moved to Pensacola where he practiced law and held various local offices. He entered the Confederate Army at the outbreak of the war as the Captain of the Pensacola Rifle Rangers.

In May 1862 Perry was made Colonel of the Second Florida Regiment in the Army of Northern Virginia and was promoted to Brigadier General after Sharpsburg. He fought in every major engagement of the Virginia front, was severely wounded at Frazier's Farm, disabled with typhoid fever at Chancellorsville, and wounded again at the Wilderness. In 1865 he returned to his law practice in Pensacola where he became known for his legal work, war record, and criticism of Republican rule in Florida.

In a Democratic split between the forces of former Governors Drew and Bloxham, Perry represented a compromise candidate. As governor, Perry endorsed a pension law in 1885 which granted a five dollar monthly payment to Confederate veterans unable to work. He supported the calling of an 1885 constitutional convention which drafted a new governing document which was ratified in 1886. Perry continued a limited program of reform by recommending that the legislature establish a State Railroad Commission.

An act the body took in 1887, and laid the cornerstone for the state's first agricultural college. Under provisions of the new constitution, Perry was not eligible to succeed himself. He retired to Pensacola and suffered a stroke while on a trip to the West. He died in Kerville, Tx., on October 15, 1889 and was buried in Pensacola.