Biography of W. Hewitt Goldsmith, Jefferson, Alabama ==================================================================== USGENWEB PROJECT NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Project Archives to store this file permanently for free access. This file was contributed and copyrighted by: Barbara Walker Winge ==================================================================== February 2002 GOLDSMITH W. HEWITT, OF ALABAMA Goldsmith W. Hewitt, of Birmingham, who represents the Sixth Congressional District of Alabama in the Congress of the United State, was born in Jefferson County, Alabama, February 14, 1834. After completing the course of instruction furnished by the common schools, and his academic curriculum, he commenced preparations for the Bar, and was admitted to practice in the Court of the State in 1856, when only a little past his majority. He was engaged in a growing business till the beginning of the civil war, when, like many other young practitioners whose pulses were stirred by the call to arms, he forsook the office for a private's commission in the Army of the Confederate States. In 1862 his gallantry won the promotion to a Captaincy; and on the hotly-contested field of Chickamauga he was seriously wounded, and thus disabled for active service in the Confederate ranks. Thus forced to return to private life, he subsequently resumed his profession at Birmingham; in 1870 and 1871 he was elected to the Senate of Alabama. He was elected to the Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Congresses, and re-elected to the Forty-seventh Congress, as a Democrat. Ref: Headley, P. C., PUBLIC MEN OF TO-DAY, 1882, S. S. Scranton & Company, Hartford, p. 421.