Harney, Thomas, 1802-1870

Lawyer, of St. Louis, Mo.; b. in Camden County, N.C.; attended Columbia College in Washington, D.C., and then went to Tennessee, studying law with Judge Rucks and after admission to the bar, worked in the office of James K. Polk. While there formed acquaintance of Stonewall Jackson; later moved to Mississippi and then to St. Louis; married a woman from Connecticut and established a summer residence in Litchfield, spending summers there for the rest of his life.

Thomas Harney was a native of Camden, N.C., who graduated from Columbian College (now George Washington University) in Washington, D.C., in 1826. He practiced law first in Tennessee, then in Clinton, Miss., from around 1833 until the mid-1840s. Harney was a member of the Mississippi State Legislature from 1841 to 1843 as an independent endorsed by the Whigs. He rejoined the Democratic Party early in the 1840s and thenceforth was active in party politics. He moved to St. Louis, Mo., in the mid-1840s and remained there until the outbreak of the Civil War. Harney moved to Litchfield, Conn., during the war, participating in anti-Lincoln politics and writing articles supportive of the South. He apparently remained in the North until his death sometime after 1870, continuing to write for conservative Southern papers.