Dallas County AlArchives Biographies.....Pettus, Edmund Winston July 6 1821 - living in 1893
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Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 20, 2004, 3:25 pm

Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
    EDMUND WINSTON PETTUS was born in Limestone county, Ala., July 6, 1821. His
father, John Pettus, who was a Virginian by birth and a planter by occupation,
had moved from Virginia to Davidson county, Tenn., at a time when that rich and
fertile country had not ceased to attract the adventurous from other states.
John Pettus married here a sister of John Anthony Winston, the first native born
governor of Alabama. In 1809, John Pettus removed to Alabama, and after living a
short while in Madison county, located in Limestone, where he died in 1822. His
widow survived him nearly sixty years, dying in 1878. The subject of this sketch
was educated at the common schools and at Clinton college, Smith county, Tenn.
After leaving school he began the study of law at Tuscumbia, in the office of
Hon. William Cooper, and in 1841 he was admitted to the bar. He proceeded to
Gainesville in Sumter county, where he formed a partnership with Hon. Turner
Reavis. In 1844 he was elected solicitor of Sumter county, a post he resigned
when, in 1849, he was carried by the gold excitement to California. Returning
after spending two years on the Pacific slope, he located at Carrolton, in
Pickens county. In 1852, he took up the duties of solicitor in that county and
discharged them for two years. His administration of the office of solicitor had
brought him prominently before the people, and in 1855 he was elected judge of
the seventh judicial district. Our subject violated Jefferson's pretended law of
office holding that few die and none resign, by resigning more than once. In
1858 he resigned his judgeship and removed to Cahaba in Dallas county, where he
was living when the war began between the north and south. While the south was
negotiating and planning for such co-operation as should render secession a
fixed fact, Judge Pettus was dispatched a commissioner from Alabama to the state
of Mississippi. As Mississippi was the scene of his first work in behalf of the
Confederacy, it furnished the scene of a martial exploit with which his name is
widely associated. This occurred at the siege of Vicksburg. The enemy had
captured a redoubt that was of great strategic importance and Gen. Stephen. D.
Lee ordered that it be retaken,in spite of the manifestly dangerous character of
the attempt. It fell to the lot of Lieut.-Col. Pettus that he should get the
order to retake the redoubt. He promptly accepted the duty and called for
volunteers. It looked then as if to volunteer meant that the volunteer would go
forth to certain death. Men shrank away. There was, however, there a body of men
made of as stern stuff as the officer himself. Waul's Texas legion volunteered
in a body. Selecting forty of them, and, together with three Alabamians who had
also volunteered, Col. Pettus stormed the redoubt, captured it and carried away
100 prisoners and three of the enemy's flags. His career as a soldier would
carry us over the larger part of the history of the war and can be but briefly
sketched. He entered the army in August, 1861, and was made major of the
Twentieth Alabama infantry. He was shortly afterward promoted to the rank of
lieutenant-colonel. He was with Gen. Kirby Smith in the Kentucky campaign of
1862. In. the succeeding winter he was assigned to Mississippi, and was in the
engagement of Port Gibson and Baker's Creek and was shut up in Vicksburg. In
October, 1863, he was appointed brigadier-general and took command of the
twentieth, twenty-third, thirtieth, thirty-first and forty-sixth Alabama
regiments. His command saw constant service to the end of the war, being at
Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain, at Atlanta, Nashville and at Bentonville.
His only wound was received at Bentonville. Returning home from the war, Gen.
Pettus located at Selma and resumed the practice of the law. He now stands in
the very front rank at the bar and does an extensive practice. Since the war
Gen. Pettus has steadily declined political preferment. By a common consensus of
opinion he could have almost if not any office in the gift of the people of
Alabama. He contents himself with active party work without its customary
rewards. In Selma he participates regularly in all political work; he is a
familiar figure in county conventions; he is none the less familiar in state
conventions, and his powerful frame over-topped by a singularly great strong
head has more than once caught the eye of the vast mob that goes to make up the
miscellaneous audience of a national convention.



Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama", Vol. I, p. 900, 903-904
Published by
Brant & Fuller (1893)
Madison, WI

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