Lawton, Alexander Robert, 1818-1896

Alexander Robert Lawton of Savannah, Ga., was a lawyer, Confederate brigadier and quartermaster general, president of the American Bar Association, Georgia state legislator, and U.S. minister to Austria-Hungary, 1887-1889.

Confederate soldier and lawyer.

Lawyer and Confederate brigadier general, from Savannah, Ga.

Alexander Robert Lawton (1818-1896) was born in the Beaufort district in South Carolina and was the son of Alexander J. and Martha Masse Lawton. Lawton graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1839 and served as a second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Artillery before resigning his commission in 1840 to study law at the Harvard Law School. Lawton graduated in 1842 and settled in Savannah, Georgia where he entered the fields of law and railroad administration. He favored Georgia's secession from the Union during the Civil War and became colonel of the 1st Georgia Volunteers and was later commissioned as brigadier general in the Confederate States Army on 13 April 1861. Lawton commanded the forces guarding Georgia's coastline before being reassigned to Virginia. In August 1863, he became the second Quartermaster General of the Confederate States of America. Following the end of the Civil War, Lawton returned to Savannah and continued to practice law at the law firm of Jackson, Lawton, and Basinger. In 1882, he was elected president of the American Bar Association and also formed his own law practice, Lawton and Cunningham, with his son, Alexander Rudolf Lawton and his son-in-law, H. C. Cunningham. In 1887, Lawton was appointed minister of Austria-Hungary by President Grover Cleveland and remained in that position until 1889. Lawton died in 1896 and was buried in Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia.

Alexander Robert Lawton (1818-1896), Confederate general, lawyer, Georgia congressman, resided in Savannah, Georgia.

Alexander Robert Lawton (1818-1896) was a West Point graduate, studied law at Harvard, and from 1849-1854 was president of the Augusta and Savannah Railroad. An ardent secessionist, he was commissioned brigadier general on 13 April 1861 in charge of Georgia's coastal defenses. In 1864 he was named Confederate quartermaster general. After the war he practiced law, served in various railroad capacities and was President Cleveland's minister to Austria.

"Known as the "Macaulay of the South," Charles C. Jones Jr. was the foremost Georgia historian of the nineteenth century. Also a noted autograph and manuscript collector and an accomplished amateur archaeologist, Jones in later years became a prominent memorialist of the Lost Cause and critic of the New South." - "Charles C. Jones Jr." New Georgia Encyclopedia. http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org (Retrieved August 21, 2008)

Alexander Robert Lawton (1818-1896) was born to planter and militia officer Alexander James Lawton (1790-1876) and Martha Mosse (b. 1788), daughter of Dr. George Mosse, on 4 November 1818 in Saint Peter's Parish, Beaufort District, S.C. Lawton graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1839 and served in an artillery unit until 1841, when he resigned to study law at Harvard. He established a law practice in Savannah, Ga., in 1843, and, in 1845, married Sarah Hillhouse Alexander, with whom he had four children. Lawton was involved in a number of business, including the running of a plantation. From 1849 to 1854, Lawton was president of the Augusta and Savannah Railroad.

A staunch secessionist, Lawton was elected to the Georgia state legislature in 1855, and was considered to be among its strongest members. In 1860, he was elected to the Georgia senate. When Georgia seceded, Lawton resigned to help organize a state regiment. As colonel of the 1st Volunteer Georgia Regiment, he seized Fort Pulaski--the first overt act of war in Georgia. In April of 1861, he was commissioned a brigadier general and put in charge of Georgia's coastal defenses. In 1862, he was sent to Richmond; Lawton fought in the second battle at Manassas and was wounded and disabled in 1862 at Sharpsburg. Jefferson Davis named Lawton quartermaster general in February of 1864, over Lawton's protests; some public doubt over the legitimacy of Lawton's appointment encouraged him to resign from this position in 1864.

After the war, Lawton returned to his law practice in Savannah, and quickly became involved once again in politics. From 1870 to 1875, he served in the state legislature. In 1876, he chaired the state electoral college, and, in 1877, acted as vice president of the Georgia constitutional convention. In 1880, Lawton was defeated as the Democratic Candidate for the United States Senate. In 1882, he served as president of the American Bar Association. From 1887 to 1889, Lawton acted as minister to Austria. He died in Clifton Springs, N.Y., on 2 July 1896.

Lawton's son, Alexander Rudolph Lawton, was born in Savannah, 9 August 1858. He received his A.B. from the University of Georgia in 1877, attended law school at the University of Virginia and Harvard, and passed the bar in 1880. In 1882, he joined the firm of Lawton and Cunningham, and became involved in a number of railroad concerns, including the Central Railroad and Banking Company of Georgia, the Central of Georgia Railroad, the Atlanta and West Point Railroad, and the Western Railway of Alabama. Alexander Rudolph Lawton was also director of the Ocean Steamship Company of Alabama and the Chatham Bank and Trust Company. He died in Savannah in 1936.

For biographical information of Alexander Robert Lawton, see Jon Wakelyn's Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy, page 278, and the Dictionary of American Biography, Volume 11, page 61.