George, James Zachariah, 1826-1897

James Zachariah George was a Confederate officer and U.S. senator from Mississippi after Reconstruction.

Born in Monroe County, Georgia, on October 20, 1826, George moved to Mississippi as a child, first to Noxubee County and then to Carroll County. He volunteered for military service in 1846 for the Mexican-American War and served under the command of Colonel Jefferson Davis, who later was elected president of the Confederate States of America. George saw combat at the Battle of Monterey. Following the Mexican-American War, George returned to Mississippi and studied law. He was appointed a reporter of Mississippi’s Supreme Court in 1854 and spent two decades compiling a multi-volume collection of legal cases.

George was selected to be a delegate to Mississippi’s secession convention in January 1861. He was a slave owner and supported the state’s separation from the Union, following Abraham Lincoln’s election to president in November 1860. When the Civil War erupted in the spring of 1861, George volunteered for military service. He received a commission as captain over Company C, 20th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, but resigned in October 1862 when offered a commission as brigadier general in the Mississippi State Troops. He remained in the state service for one year before rejoining the Confederate army (reportedly due to frustration with the Mississippi militia’s poor organization and resources), taking the rank of colonel to command the 5th Mississippi Cavalry. George was captured by Union forces during the Civil War, and spent time in a prisoner of war camp.

After the Civil War, George practiced law in Mississippi and formed a very successful law firm with Wiley P. Harris. He was a vocal defendant of white supremacy during Reconstruction, and reportedly influenced Republican Governer Adelbert Ames to not arm African American militias in Mississippi during tensions over the 1875 election. Democrats used promises like this to weaken resistance to a campaign of violence and intimidation against African American and Republican voters. As a result, Democrats scored a major electoral victory in Mississippi, helping overturn federal Reconstruction policies designed to protect Black civil rights.

In 1879, George received an appointment to the Mississippi Supreme Court. However, he did not remain there long, since he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1880. He won reelection in 1886 and 1892. He was a vocal proponent for a Mississippi constitutional convention in 1890 to disenfranchise Black southerners, and successfully argued in its defense in front of the Senate and the Supreme Court. George was popular among conservative white Mississippians, in part because he crafted legal exceptions to Mississippi’s voting laws that protect poor whites while denying suffrage to African Americans.

George died in 1897 in Mississippi City, Mississippi. He had been married to Elizabeth B. Young. The couple had seven children between 1848 and 1862, five of whom survived to adulthood. George is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in North Carrollton, Mississippi.

(Wikipedia; Daniel Vogt, “James Z. George,” Mississippi Encyclopedia; FindaGrave)

James Zachariah George belonged to the following social groups: