Lamar County GeorgiaGenWeb -- L Q C Lamar

Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar

Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, for whom Lamar County was named, was born near Eatontown, Putnam County, Georgia, on September 17, 1825, the fourth of eight children of Lucius Lamar and Sarah Bird.

He graduated from Emory College in 1845 and studied law at Macon with a cousin, Absalom Chapell. He practiced law in Macon and then moved his practice to Covington. In 1847 Lamar married Virginia Longstreet, daughter of Augustus B. Longstreet, the president of Emory College. Two years later they moved to Oxford, Mississippi, where his father-in-law had accepted the presidency of the University of Mississippi. Lamar continued practicing law and also taught mathematics at the university. Lucius and Virginia returned to Covington in 1852. He won election to the Georgia legislature the next year, but in 1855 they moved back to Mississippi.

Lamar began his national political career with an election to the House of
Representatives in 1856. With the election of Abraham Lincoln, Lamar
advocated the withdrawal of the South from the United States. He resigned
from Congress and at a state convention in early January 1861, wrote
Mississippi's ordinance of secession.

At the beginning of the Civil War, Lamar enlisted in the Confederate Army and served as a Lieutenant Colonel until he was forced to resign because of his poor health. In the final months of the war Lamar again served, as
judge advocate with Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. With the defeat of the Confederacy Lamar returned to the practice of law and to teaching at the University of Mississippi.

After being pardoned for his services to the Confederacy, Lamar was elected in 1872 to Congress. Following two terms in the House, he was elected to the Senate in 1876. During his second term in the Senate, President Grover
Cleveland asked Lamar to become Secretary of the Interior. He served in this cabinet office until 1887 when President Cleveland appointed him to the Supreme Court to replace Associate Justice Williams Woods of Georgia,
who had died the previous May. Against objections to his age and service in the Confederacy, the appointment was confirmed by the Senate in January 1888 by a vote of 32 to 28. Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar served on the
Supreme Court until his death in Vineville, Georgia, January 23, 1893.

Few Americans have enjoyed as extensive and diverse a public career as Lucius Q. C. Lamar, for his nation, for Georgia and his adopted state of Mississippi, for the South, and for his family.

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