Barbour County AlArchives Biographies.....Henry De Lamar Clayton March 7 1827 - October 13 1888
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 12, 2004, 12:21 am

Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
  HENRY DE LAMAR CLAYTON, who in life was the revered citizen, the  gallant
soldier, the eminent jurist, the renowned statesman, and to crown it all the
distinguished educator, was born in Pulaski county, Ga., on the 7th day of
March, 1827. He was the son of Nelson Clayton, long a citizen of that part of
Chambers, now included in Lee county, Ala., where the subject of this sketch
grew to manhood. Graduating at the Emory & Henry college, Va., in 1848, his
graduating address winning the prize medal in oratory, he read law in the office
of John G. and Eli S. Shorter, in Eufaula, and in the following year was
admitted to the bar. He located at Clayton, the county seat of Barbour county,
and by close and persistent effort soon built up a wide and lucrative practice.
In 1857 he was chosen to represent his county in the legislature and was
chairman of the military committee of that body at the breaking out of
hostilities in 1861. He was sent by the governor immediately to Pensacola, where
he received the different companies as they arrived, and organized them into the
First Alabama regiment, of which he was elected colonel. At the expiration of
his twelve months' enlistment, he organized the Thirty-ninth Alabama "for three
years or the war," and led it through the Kentucky campaign. At Murfreesboro he
was severly wounded in the right shoulder, and the following day was promoted to
brigadier, with the Thirteenth, Thirty-sixth, Thirty-eighth, Thirty-second, and
Fifty-eigth, Alabama regiments for a brigade. He led this brigade in the
thickest of the fight at Chickamauga, Rocky Face and New Hope Church, and in the
latter engagement, by the exhibition of the qualities of a commander and his
marked courage, he so distinguished himself, that he was promoted to a
major-generalship. The brigades of Gibson, Stovall, Strahl and Holtzclaw formed
a division, which he led in all the subsequent battles of the army of Tennessee
and up to the surrender in North Carolina. "He was known as one of the for-most
'fighting generals' of the western army. He was several times wounded, and at
Jonesboro had three horses killed under him." His corps commander, Gen. Stephen
D. Lee, said of him. "I have never seen the personal gallantry he displayed in
the battles of Jonesboro and Nashville excelled." After his return from the
army, General Clayton resumed the practice of his profession and the cultivation
of his plantation, but was soon called upon to devote his talents to the public
service, being elected, in May of 1866, judge of the eighth, now the third,
judicial district. In 1868 he was deposed by the national congress, but was
again elected when the great "tidal wave" of 1874 struck the state. He was
re-elected in 1880, and held the office until 1886, when he resigned to enter
the field as a candidate for governor before the democratic convention. He made
a strong fight and went into the convention as the leading candidate, but was
defeated by a combination of the weaker ones. In June of the same year he was
elected president of the university of Alabama, where he also filled the chair
of international and constitutional law. He accepted this position, and in
September entered upon the noble calling in which the great southern leader,
Gen. Robert E. Lee, had spent his last years-the training of the sons of those
he had led in battle for the high duties and responsibilities of American
citizenship. In this position it was said of him: "Although learned in the law,
and skilled as an expositor, it was probably in the exalted standard of
professional ethics that he constantly held up to his classes that he had left
his most lasting impression upon the minds and characters of those who were
fortunate enough to enjoy his instruction." It was while laboring in the
educational field that the great Reaper marked him for his own, and on the 13th
of October, 1888, the state was called upon to mourn the loss of one of her
strongest sons. Gen. Clayton was married in 1850, in Barbour county, to Victoria
V., daughter of Gen.. John L. Hunter, who, with a family of seven sons and four
daughters, still survives him.-Henry D. Clayton, Jr., third son of Gen. Clayton,
was born about thirty-five years ago, on the old homestead one mile south of the
county seat of Barbour. He was educated at Emory and Henry college, Va., and at
the university of Alabama, where he graduated in both the academic and law
departments; from the latter in 1878. He practiced for two years at Clayton,
then located in Eufaula, where he has since established for himself a state
reputation in criminal and general practice. In the fall of 1890 he was elected
to represent his county in the legislature, and in the session which followed,
as chairman of the judiciary committee, he acquitted himself most creditably. He
is the Alabama. member of the national democratic committee, so appointed by the
St. Louis convention in 1888. Mr. Clayton is of commanding and captivating
address, a fluent and able speaker, and a fit representative of a man whom
Alabama is proud to own as one of her favorite sons.



Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama"


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