Colonel of the 3rd Virginia Infantry

United States Congressman from Virginia

(1828-1919) Born near Petersburg, Virginia, he graduated from Hampton-Sydney College in 1845 as valedictorian of his class, and with a considerable reputation as an orator. He then studied law at the University of Virginia. By the outbreak of the Civil War, Pryor had a notable career as a lawyer, newspaper editor, and U.S. Congressman. He was known as a fiery and eloquent advocate of slavery, Southern states rights, and secession; although he and his wife did not personally own slaves, they came from the slave holding class. He resigned his seat in congress on March 3, 1861, and was said to have declined the honor of firing the first shot at Fort Sumter. Arriving in Charleston on April 10th, Pryor who was out of patience with his own state of Virginia for not yet joining South Carolina in secession, had come to urge an attack on Fort Sumter believing it would spur on the cautious Virginia to secede. Pryor said as he addressed an enthusiastic crowd from the balcony of the Charleston Hotel. "I thank you...that you have at last annihilated this accursed Union." He made fun of Virginia with this remark, "Give the old lady time...she is a little rheumatic...but I assure you that just as certain as tomorrow's sun will rise upon us, just so certain will Virginia be a member of the Southern Confederacy; and I will tell your Governor what will put her in the Southern Confederacy in less than an hour by Shrewsbury clock...strike a blow!" He served in the provisional Confederate Congress in 1861, and also in the first regular Congress in 1862 under the Confederate Constitution. He resigned to enter the army as Colonel of the 3rd Virginia Infantry. Promoted to rank of Brigadier General on April 16, 1862, he commanded a brigade in the 1862 Virginia campaign, the Seven Days Battles, the 2nd Manassas campaign, and at Sharpsburg, Md. At the latter battle he assumed command of General Anderson's Division, in General Longstreet's Corps, when General Richard H. Anderson was wounded. He later served as a courier for the Confederate cavalry under General Fitzhugh Lee, and was captured on November 27, 1864, as a suspected spy, and was confined in Fort Lafayette, New York, and was released on parole by order of President Lincoln, and returned to Virginia. In the early part of the war, his wife Sara Rice Pryor accompanied him and worked as a nurse for the Confederate troops. In 1865, an impoverished Pryor moved to New York City, invited by friends he had known before the war. He eventually established a law firm with the politician and notorious ex-Union General Benjamin F. Butler of Boston. Butler was widely known and hated in the South and known as "Beast Butler." Pryor became active in Democratic politics in New York, and brought his family from Virginia to New York in 1868, and they settled in Brooklyn Heights. He learned to operate in New York Democratic Party politics, where he was prominent among influential southerners who became known as "Confederate carpetbaggers." Pryor was elected as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1876, a year before the federal government pulled its last military forces out of the South and ended Reconstruction. Chosen by the Democratic Party for the important Decoration Day address in 1877, after the national compromise that resulted in the federal government pulling its troops out of the South, Pryor vilified Reconstruction and promoted the "Confederate Lost Cause." He referred to all the soldiers as noble victims of politicians, although he had been one who gave fiery speeches in favor of secession and war. In 1890, he was appointed as Judge of the New York Court of Common Pleas, where he served until 1894. He was next appointed as Justice of the New York Supreme Court, serving from 1894-99, when he retired. He died on March 14, 1919, in New York City, and was buried in Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, New Jersey, where his wife and their sons Theodorick and William were also buried. His daughter, Mary Blair Pryor Walker, was buried there after her death.

Card Signature With Sentiment & Date: 3 3/4 x 1 3/4, in ink, beautifully signed, Very Respectfully, Roger A. Pryor, 25th June 1886. Excellent, bold and very desirable autograph.