Robert Toombs of Georgia stands as one of the most fiery and influential politicians of the nineteenth century. Sarcastic, charming, egotistical, and gracious, he rose quickly from state office to congressman to senator in the decades before the Civil War. Though he sought sectional reconciliation throughout the 1840s and 1850s, he eventually became one of the South’s most ardent secessionists.
This thorough biography chronicles his days as a student and young lawyer in Georgia, his boisterous political career, his appointment as the Confederacy’s first Secretary of State, his unsuccessful stint as a Confederate general, and his role as a proud, unreconstructed rebel after the war. An exploration of Toombs’ career reveals the political forces and missteps that drove him—and people like him—to want to secede from the United States.

Mark Scroggins is an archivist and writer who lives in Houston, Texas. He is the author of two books and has written articles for the Georgia Historical Quarterly, America’s Civil War, and Georgia Backroads Magazine.

Mark Scroggins
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 242
Bibliographic Info: 9 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2011
pISBN: 978-0-7864-6363-3
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8711-0
Imprint: McFarland

Preface and Acknowledgments      ix

Introduction      1

1. Georgia      3

2. Milledgeville      19

3. House      39

4. Senate      80

5. Dixie      124

6. Un-Reconstructed      160

Notes      199

Bibliography      219

Index      225

“those interested in learning about this fascinating man will find much of value in this biography”—Civil War News; “an interesting and highly readable book…a work that anybody with an interest in Georgia history should seek out”—confederatebookreview.blogspot.com.