Clayton, Henry De Lamar, 1827-1889

Henry De Lamar Clayton, Sr. was born in Pulaski County, Georgia, on March 7, 1827, the son of Nelson and Sarah Clayton. He graduated from Emory and Henry College, Virginia, after which he read law under John G. and Eli S. Shorter in Eufaula, Alabama. In 1848 he was licensed as an attorney and began the practice of law in Clayton, Alabama. In 1857 he was chosen to represent Barbour County in the Alabama Legislature, and he served as a member of the House of Representatives until 1861.

Upon the threat of war Clayton urged Governor Moore to accept the volunteer regiment of trained companies of which he was colonel. Two of the companies were accepted in February 1861, and he enlisted in one of them as a private but was ordered to go at once to Pensacola, Florida, and take command of Alabama troops as they arrived. On March 28, 1861, the First Alabama Regiment was organized with Clayton as colonel. He remained at Pensacola, in command of a brigade for a year, and then organized as a new regiment, the Thirty-Ninth Alabama Volunteers, which he led as colonel in the Kentucky campaign and in the battle of Murfreesboro.

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