William T. Wofford

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William Tatum Wofford (June 28, 1824 – May 22, 1884) was a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Wofford was born in Habersham County, Georgia, and became a lawyer, state legislator, and editor of the Cassville, Georgia, Standard. He voted against secession, but offered his service to the Confederate Army, having experienced military life during the Mexican-American War as a captain of Georgia Mounted Volunteers.]].^[1] He become Colonel of the 18th Georgia Infantry early in the war and served in North Carolina and Virginia before being assigned to General John Bell Hood's Texas Brigade. He saw action at Yorktown, West Point, and Seven Pines during the Peninsula Campaign, Second Manassas, and Sharpsburg, where he commanded the Texas Brigade during the bloody battle.

In November 1862, Wofford and his 18th Georgia were transferred to the Georgia brigade of Col. Thomas R. R. Cobb.^[2] They fought under Cobb at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December, defending the famous stone wall at Marye's Heights. Cobb was mortally wounded in the battle and Wofford assumed command of his brigade, promoted to brigadier general on January 17, 1863. He led the brigade, now called Wofford's Brigade, at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, where he followed William Barksdale's Mississippi brigade in the assault through the Peach Orchard late in the afternoon of July 2.

Traveling to Georgia with the rest of Longstreet's Corps to reinforce the Army of Tennessee, he arrived on the field too late to participate in the Battle of Chickamauga. His whereabouts are unknown during Longstreet's siege of Knoxville, Tennessee. Wofford fought in the Overland Campaign at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, and was wounded in both battles. He left the Army of Northern Virginia before the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign and assumed command of the Subdistrict of Northern Georgia, of the District of Georgia, Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida on January 20, 1865, a post he held until he was paroled at Resaca, Georgia, on May 2, and pardoned on July 24, 1865.

After the war he was active in the law, Democratic politics, and education. As a delegate to the Georgia Constitutional Convention of 1877, he argued for the repeal of convict leasing, for Confederate veterans' benefits, and for African-American education. Many of his ideas appeared in the platform of the Populist Party a decade later.^[3] He died in Cass Station, Georgia, and is buried in Cassville Cemetery, Cassville, Georgia.

[edit] References

Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
Smith, Gerald J., "William Tatum Wofford", Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History, Heidler, David S., and Heidler, Jeanne T., eds., W. W. Norton & Company, 2000, ISBN 0-393-04758-X.
Tagg, Larry, The Generals of Gettysburg, Savas Publishing, 1998, ISBN 1-882810-30-9.