William Barksdale

U. S. House of Representatives, Mississippi, 1853-1861
Brigadier General, CSA, 1861-1863

Born: August 21, 1821, Rutherford County, Tennessee.

• Brother of Ethelbert Barksdale.
  Attended the University of Nashville, Nashville, Tennessee.
  
• Studied law, was admitted to the bar, 1839
  
• Commenced law practice in Columbus, Lowndes County, Mississippi.
  
• Served in the Mexican War as quartermaster of the Mississippi Volunteers.
  
• Delegate from Mississippi to the Democratic National Convention at Baltimore, Maryland, 1852.
  
• Elected as a Mississippi State Rights Democrat to the Thirty-third and to the three succeeding U. S. Congresses, March 4, 1853 - January 12, 1861, when he withdrew.
  
• Accompanied Representative Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, to the Senate Chamber when the latter made an attack upon Senator Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, and made himself somewhat conspicuous in preventing the interference of others present.
  
• Entered the Confederate Army during the Civil War as Colonel of the Thirteenth Regiment, Mississippi Volunteers.
  
• Promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, August 12, 1862.
  
• Commanded a Mississippi brigade in Longstreet's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.

Died: July 2, 1863, in the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Buried: Greenwood Cemetery, Jackson, Mississippi.

(Source: U.S. Congress. House. Biographical Directory Of The American Congress 1774-1949, 85th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Doc. 607 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950), pp. 759-2057.)