Robert Toombs

Robert Toombs 1810-85, American statesman, Confederate leader, b. Wilkes co., Ga. A successful lawyer in Georgia, he entered politics as a Whig, serving in the state legislature and in Congress (1845-53). He favored the Compromise of 1850 and with Howell Cobb and Alexander H. Stephens canvassed Georgia to have it ratified. With them also he organized the short-lived Constitutional Union party, which elected him (1852) to the U.S. Senate, in which he served until 1861. A brilliant orator, Toombs was a firm supporter of Southern measures but did not become an avowed secessionist until after the election of Abraham Lincoln. Thereafter he played a leading role in the Georgia secession and in the organization of the Confederacy. Made secretary of state in the new government, he soon resigned to become a brigadier general commanding Georgia troops in Virginia. He fought in the Peninsular campaign, the second battle of Bull Run, and the Antietam campaign in the Civil War, resigning when he was refused promotion. Toombs, who had coveted the Confederate presidency, belonged to the faction that opposed the policies of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. After the war he fled to Europe, returning in 1867. He continued to be important in Georgia politics, especially after Reconstruction. He himself remained "unreconstructed," refusing to the end to take the oath of allegiance to the United States.

Bibliography: See biographies by U. B. Phillips (1913, repr. 1968) and W. Y. Thompson (1966).

Toombs, Robert Augustus (1810–1885) U.S. congressman, Confederate cabinet member, and Confederate general. Toombs was born in Wilkes County, Georgia, and graduated from Union College and the University of Virginia Law School. He built up a fortune based on slaves and real estate in Georgia, serving the state for four terms as a representative before being selected twice to be a senator. He became the first Confederate secretary of state, but served only a few months before resigning after securing a brigadier general's commission. He was the most prominent political general in the Army of Northern Virginia, and handled his brigade of mostly Georgia troops poorly during the Seven Days' battles and Second Bull Run (1862). He did, however, do very well holding Burnside's Bridge at Antietam (1862) for many hours with only five hundred men against thousands of Union attackers. When he did not get the promotion he believed he had earned there he resigned, fulfilling a promise to his wife that he would leave the army after distinguishing himself in a big battle. He spent the rest of the war quarreling with the Confederate government, and fled to Europe for two years after the war. Though he never sought a pardon and could not vote or hold office, he still dominated Georgia's constitutional convention in 1877. He died in Washington, Georgia, suffering from alcoholism and blindness.