Barbour County AlArchives Biographies.....James L. Pugh December 12 1820 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 12, 2004, 5:03 pm

Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
    JAMES L. PUGH was born in Burke county, Ga., December 12, 1820. He received
an academic education in Georgia and Alabama, to which latter state his father
moved when young Pugh was four years of age. He was left an orphan at the age of
eleven. Thrown on his own resources, he was entirely equal to the occasion. For
awhile he carried the mail from Louisville, Barbour county, to Franklin, Henry
county, on Saturdays and Sundays, in order to get money enough to pay his
tuition at the school he was then attending. For four years he was a clerk in a
dry goods store in Eufaula and for a short while he was a clerk in Montgomery.
He was in the meantime preparing for the bar and he was admitted in 1841 at the
age of two-one years. He was associated with E. C. Bullock and with W. L. Cowan
in the practice. In 1848, he was a Taylor elector, and a Buchanan elector in
1856, and a Tilden elector in 1876. In his first candidacy for congress he was
defeated by Henry W. Hilliard, but in 1859 he was elected without opposition. He
withdrew from congress when the war came on and volunteered as a private in the
First Alabama infantry. He saw service for one year, being stationed near
Pensacola. He was elected to the Confederate congress in 1861, and was
re-elected in 1863. Returning to Eufaula, which is still his home, he began anew
the practice of the law, and continued in private life with one interruption
until his election to the senate in 1880, to fill the unexpired term of George
S. Houston. In 1875, he was a member of the constitutional convention that
formed the present constitution of Alabama. Senator Pugh was re-elected in 1884,
and again in 1890. His term of office will expire March 3, 1897. Senator Pugh
holds a high place among the distinguished senators of the United States. He
does not speak often, but when he does speak, it is with something of the force
of a steam pile-driver. A fine example of his power in his famous defense of
President Cleveland against the demands of the senate to be allowed to inspect
his private official papers. Mr. Pugh's speech in favor of the minority report
is a monument of legal research and logic. With the assumption of control of the
senate by the democrats on March 5, 1893, Senator Pugh takes an even higher
official rank in that body. and his great abilities will be even more deeply
impressed upon the people of the United States.



Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama" p. 455-456


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