Madison-Lauderdale-Montgomery County AlArchives Biographies.....Walker, Leroy Pope February 7, 1817 - August 23, 1884 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/al/alfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Carolyn Golowka http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00012.html#0002972 June 15, 2006, 2:30 pm Author: Alabama: Her History, REsources, War REcord, and Public Men From 1540 to 1872," by Willis Brewer, published 1872 Leroy Pope Walker was a native and a resident of Madison, and son of the preceding [John Williams Walker]. He was born in 1817 and was thoroughly educated. He read law under Judge Hopkins, was admitted to the bar, and at once removed to Canton, Miss. He practiced there with but little promise a short time, then returned and located in Bellefonte, Jackson county. A year later he removed to Moulton and became the partner of Hon. D. G. Ligon. In 1843 and in '44 he represented Lawrence in the house, but the year after he removed to Lauderdale. That county elected him to the house in 1847, when he was made speaker. In 1848 he was a Cass elector for his district and for the State at large for Pierce and Buchanan. In 1849 he was re-elected to the house, but the year after was elected judge of the circuit court. This position he held nine months, and resigned it. In 1853 he again represented Lauderdale, but in 1855 made his residence at Huntsville, where he has been the law partner of Messrs. R. C. Brickell and Septimus D. Cabaniss. In 1860 he was a delegate to the historic Charleston convention, and when the State seceded was sent as commissioner to Tennessee, where his speech before the legislature urging co-operation was able and eloquent. He had just returned, when, in February, President Davis summoned him to a place in the cabinet of "the storm- cradled nation that fell." To the duties of this high position Mr. Walker brought inexperience, but which was to a great extent if not fully compensated for by zeal and energy. The task of organizing and equipping armies almost without materials and with resources limited to the patriotic ardor of the people, was an Herculean one. His labors were incessant, and when he resigned in the autumn of 1861 his health was shattered. The precise motive for his retirement from the cabinet is not known., and will probably not be from his lips; but the belief is general that the self-confidence of Mr. Davis first exhibited itself in the war office, and that Gen. Walker had too much respect for the responsibility and dignity of his position to permit it to be subordinated to a mere clerkship. Gen. Walker is censured for his speech in Montgomery when announcing the fall of Fort Sumter, his utterances being regarded as official, but Mr. Stephens, in his "War Between the States," (Vol. I, pp. 415, 412,) exonerates him in a great degree of all blame. He was commissioned as brigadier general on his retirement, and ordered to report to Gen. Bragg. He was placed in command at Mobile, but held it only a short time. In the spring of 1862 he resigned his commission because he was not assigned to duty. The following year he was appointed judge of a military court, and served till the close of the war. Since that time he has practiced his profession very profitably and successfully in Huntsville. In person Gen. Walker is about five feet ten inches high, with less than medium flesh, and fair complexion; his appearance and manners indicating cultivation and refinement. Though he has occupied various stations of honor and responsibility, it is as an orator that he has earned his most enduring fame. "He is the clearest, most transparent, speaker I ever heard, in the pulpit, on the stump, or at the forum," says Col. Nich. Davis, who compares Gen. W.'s skill in his profession to Helen's description of the son of Laertes: "That is Ulysses, man of many arts, Skilled in every form of shrew device, And action wisely planed." Gen. Walker first married a lady of Mississippi; his second wife is a daughter of Hon. Wm. D. Pickett of Montgomery, deceased. His eldest son, Capt. Clifton Walker, a gifted gentleman, was on Gen. Tracy's staff, and died in Mississippi within the past few years. Additional Comments: Leroy Pope Walker was born to John Williams Walker (1789-April 23, 1823) and Matilda Pope in Huntsville, Madison County, Alabama. He married Eliza Dickson Pickett, daughter of William Dickson Pickett and Eliza Goddard Whitman on July 29, 1850 in Autauga County, Alabama. They had at least three children: Matilda, born about 1851; Eliza Pickett Walker, born December 23, 1853, died January 1, 1854; and Pope (Leroy Pope, Jr.?), born about 1854 in Alabama. Matilda only shows up in the 1860 Census in Huntsville (page 233B) and Pope shows up in both the 1860 and 1870 census, Huntsville, Madison County, Alabama, with his parents. Leroy Pope and Eliza Dickson Pickett Walker, along with their daughter Eliza Pickett Walker, are buried in the Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville, Madison County, Alabama File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/madison/bios/walker31nbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/alfiles/ File size: 5.4 Kb