Marcus F. Wright's Civil War Bios -  General Joseph Emerson Brown

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                                   BROWN
   p.304
   BROWN, GENERAL JOSEPH EMERSON, prominent in the public affairs of
   Georgia, for more than forty years, was born in Pickens County, South
   Carolina, in 1821. After some experience at home as school teacher and
   law student he graduated at Yale Law School in 1846. His first public
   office was accepted in 1849, when he became State Senator. From that
   time he took a conspicuous part in nearly all State matters of
   importance, holding many positions of great trust and responsibility,
   being selected successively as presidential elector in 1852, judge of
   the Supreme Court in 1855 and Governor in 1857, re-elected in 1859,
   1861, and 1863, each time receiving a larger majority of votes.
   When the war began he seized Forts Polaski and Jackson, near Savannah,
   even before his State seceded. After the formal secession he occupied
   the United States Arsenal at Augusta, and raised ten thousand fighting
   men, but refused, on application, to send them out of Georgia. When
   General sherman desired his presence at a conference in 1864 he
   refused to attend, declaring that he was not free to act without
   legislative sanction. He was arrested at the close of the war, and
   when released worried his State to accept the reconstruction terms as
   offered. This attitude his State did not approve. He became a
   Republican, but since 1872 acted with the Democrats, and was, in 1880
   and again in 1884, chosen for the United States Senate.