GORDON, James, Congress, MS (1833-1912)

GORDON James , a Senator from Mississippi; born in Cotton Gin Port, Monroe County, Miss., December 6, 1833; moved with his parents to Pontotoc County in 1834; attended the public schools, St. Thomas Hall, Holly Springs, Miss., and La Grange College, Alabama; graduated from the University of Mississippi at Oxford in 1855; planter and newspaper and magazine writer; member, State house of representatives in 1857 and 1859; moved to Okolona, Miss., in 1859; during the Civil War served as colonel in the Confederate Army with Cavalry regiments he had raised and organized; special commissioner of the Confederacy to visit European countries in 1864; captured in the harbor of Wilmington, N.C., on his return in January 1865, but escaped in February 1865 and fled to Canada; received a passport to return to the United States and successfully defended himself against charges of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate President Lincoln; member, State house of representatives in 1876 and 1886; member, State senate 1904-1906; appointed to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Anselm J. McLaurin and served from December 27, 1909, to February 22, 1910; was not a candidate for election in 1910; resumed agricultural pursuits and literary activities; died in Okolona, Chickasaw County, Miss., November 28, 1912; interment in Odd Fellows Cemetery.

Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography; Gordon, James. "The Battle and Retreat from Corinth." Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society 4 (1901): 63-72; Gordon, James. The Old Plantation, and Other Poems. Meridian, MS: T. Farmer, 1909.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present