Albert Taylor Bledsoe

Albert Taylor Bledsoe
Born (1809-11-09)November 9, 1809
Frankfort, Kentucky
Died December 8, 1877(1877-12-08) (aged 68)
Alexandria, Virginia (another source says Baltimore, Maryland)
Nationality American
Alma mater United States Military Academy
Kenyon College, Ohio
Occupation educator, attorney, author, and clergyman
Political party Whig Party (United States)
Religion Episcopal, Southern Methodist
Spouse(s) Harriet Coxe (married in 1836)
Parent(s) Moses Owsley Bledsoe and Sophia Childress Taylor

Albert Taylor Bledsoe (November 9, 1809 – December 8, 1877) was an Episcopal priest, attorney, professor of mathematics, and officer in the Confederate army and was best known as an architect of the Lost Cause and defender of the Old South and of slavery.[1]

Early life and education

Bledsoe was born on November 9, 1809 in Frankfort, Kentucky, the oldest of five children of Moses Owsley Bledsoe and Sophia Childress Taylor (who was a relative of President Zachary Taylor).[2] He was a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point from 1825 to 1830, where he was a fellow cadet of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.[2][3] After serving two years in the United States Army, he studied law and theology at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and received his M.A. and LL.M. In 1836. he married Harriet Coxe of Burlington NJ, and they had seven children, four of whom survived childhood.

His daughter was the author Sophia Bledsoe Herrick.[4]

College professor and mathematician

Bledsoe in his lectures at the University of Virginia would frequently "interlard his demonstration of some difficult problem in differential or integral calculus--for example, the lemniscata of Bernouilli [sic] --with some vigorous remarks in the doctrine of States' rights".[2] His book The Philosophy of Mathematics was one of the earliest American works on mathematics and includes chapters on Descartes, Leibnitz, and Newton.

Clergyman

In 1835, Bledsoe became an Episcopal minister and became an assistant to Bishop Smith of Kentucky. He abandoned his clerical career in 1838 because of his opposition to infant baptism. Later in life, he was ordained a Methodist minister in 1871, but he never took charge of a church.[5] He was a strenuous advocate of the doctrine of free will and his views are set forth in his book Examination of Edwards on the Will (1845).

Lawyer

In 1838, Bledsoe moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he was a law partner of Edward D. Baker, and where he practiced law in the same courts as Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.[6] He practiced before the United States Supreme Court in Washington DC from 1840–1848.[5]

Confederate Official

In 1861, Bledsoe received a commission as a colonel in the Confederate army, and later became Acting Assistant Secretary of War.[5] In 1863 he was sent to London for the purpose of researching various historical problems relating to the North-South conflict, as well as guiding British public opinion in favor of the Confederate cause.

Southern Apologist

In 1868 he moved back to the United States and published the Southern Review.[7] He was the "epitome of an unreconstructed Southerner" and published articles defending slavery and secession.[3]

Writings

Notes

  1. ↑ Terry A. Barnhart, Albert Taylor Bledsoe: Defender of the Old South and Architect of the Lost Cause (Louisiana State University Press; 2011)
  2. 1 2 3 http://www.math.usma.edu/people/Rickey/dms/00602-Bledsoe.html
  3. 1 2 http://www.answers.com/topic/albert-taylor-bledsoe
  4. ↑ Hollis, C. Carroll (1979). "Sophia Bledsoe Herrick". In Flora , Joseph M. Southern writers: a biographical dictionary. LSU Press. pp. 223–. ISBN 978-0-8071-0390-6. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
  5. 1 2 3 http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc02.html?term=Bledsoe,+Albert+Taylor
  6. ↑ http://www.math.usma.edu/people/Rickey/dms/00602-Bledsoe-U-VA.html
  7. ↑ Mott, Frank L. (1938). "The Southern Review." In: A History of American Magazines, 1865-1885. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 382.

Further reading

  • Barnhart, Terry A. (2011). Albert Taylor Bledsoe: Defender of the Old South and Architect of the Lost Cause. Louisiana State University Press (the standard scholarly biography).
  • Freeman, Douglas Southall (1939) The South to Posterity: An Introduction to the Writing of Confederate History. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
  • Herrick, Sophia Bledsoe (1907). "Albert Taylor Bledsoe (1809–1877)." In: Library of Southern Literature, ed. Edwin Andersen Alderman and Joel Chandler Harris, Vol. I. New Orleans/Atlanta/Dallas: The Martin and Hoyt Company, pp. 395–399.
  • Hubbell, Jay B. (1954). The South in American Literature, 1607-1900. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
  • McCorkle, William P. (1891). "Bledsoe's Theory of Moral Freedom," The Presbyterian Quarterly, Vol. V, pp. 229–242.
  • Steel, Samuel Augustus (1925). "Albert Taylor Bledsoe." In: Eminent Men I Met Along the Sunny Road. Nashville: Cokesbury Press, pp. 30–55.
  • Tillett, Wilbur F. (1893). "Albert Taylor Bledsoe," The Methodist Review, Vol. XIV, No. 2, pp. 219–242.
  • Weaver, R. M. (1944). "Albert Taylor Bledsoe," The Sewanee Review, Vol. LII, No. 1, pp. 34–45.
  • Woodworth, Stephen E. (1999). "Bledsoe, Albert Taylor." In: American National Biography, Vol. III, pp. 11–12.

External links

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