CS Con Pryor, Roger Atkinson - C.S. Delegate, VA

Roger Atkinson Pryor​

Born: July 19, 1828

Birth Place: Petersburg, Virginia

Father: Rev. Theodorick Bland Pryor 1805 – 1890

(Buried: Presbyterian Brick Church Cemetery, Nottoway, Virginia)​

Mother: Lucy Epes Atkinson 1810 – 1829

(Buried: Pryor Atkinson Graveyard, Harper, Virginia)​

Wife: Sarah Agnes Rice 1830 – 1912

(Buried: Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, New Jersey)​

Children:

Maria Gordon Pryor Rice 1850 – 1928​

(Buried: Lakeview Cemetery, Blackstone, Virginia)​

​

Theodorick Bland Pryor 1851 – 1871​

(Buried: Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, New Jersey)​

​

Roger Atkinson Pryor Jr. 1853 – 1919​

​

William Rice Pryor 1857 – 1904​

(Buried: Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, New Jersey)​

​

Mary Blair Pryor Walker 1859 – 1946​

(Buried: Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, New Jersey)​

​

Lucy Atkinson Pryor Page – Brown 1861 – 1952​

(Buried: Cypress Lawn Memorial Cemetery, Colma, California)​

​

Frances "Fanny" Theodora Bland Pryor Dodge 1863 – 1947​

(Buried: Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, New Jersey)​

Education:

1845: Graduated from Hampden – Sydney College​

​

1848: Graduated from University of Virginia law school​

Occupation before War:

Worked on Editorial Staff of Washington Union Newspaper​

​

Worked on Editorial Staff of Richmond Enquirer Newspaper​

​

1854 – 1857: United States Minister to Greece​

​

Owner and Editor of The South Newspaper​

​

1859 – 1861: United States Representative from Virginia​

Civil War Career:

1862: Virginia Delegate to Confederate Provisional Congress​

​

1862: Colonel of 3rd​ Virginia Infantry Regiment​

​

1862 – 1863: Brigadier General in Confederate Army Infantry​

​

1863 – 1864: Private & Scout to Major General Fitzhugh Lee​

​

1864: Imprisoned at Fort Lafayette in New York as a suspected Spy​

​

1864: Released and Paroled by President Abraham Lincoln​

Occupation after War:

Attorney in Boston, Massachusetts​

​

Leader in Democratic Party Politics in New York

​

1876: Delegate to Democratic Party National Convention​

​

1890 – 1894: Judge of New York State Court of Common Pleas​

​

1894 – 1899: Associate Justice of New York State Supreme Court​

​

1912 – 1919: Referee for New York State Supreme Court​

Died: March 14, 1919

Place of Death: New York City, New York

Age at time of Death: 90 years old

Burial Place: Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, New Jersey

 

[Luke Freet]

I believe I heard a story that Pryor, being present on the 12th, was given the oppurtunity to fire the first shot at Fort Sumter which he declined.

 

[DaveBrt]

BG down to Private -- should be a story there.

 

[Luke Freet]

BG down to Private -- should be a story there.

Pryor resigned in early 1863, smarting from a mistake he made commanding at Antietam. He left the army breifly for a political seat, but returned and join Fitzhugh Lee's Cavalry as a private and a scout.

 

[Pollaco]

He resigned his seat in the First Regular Congress on April 5, 1862 after serving on the Committee on Military Affairs. He then devoted his energy to his military career.He was commissioned s brigadier General on April 16, 1862.

 

[Pollaco]

After his resignation he was a little more than a private in Fitzhugh Lee's Cavalry, he was a special courier with the cavalry. It was at this position that He was captured.on Nov. 27, 1864 near Petersburg.

 

[gentlemanrob]

Happy Birthday Brig. General Roger A. Pryor! Salutes remembering General Pryor on his birthday.

 

[gentlemanrob]

Happy (Tuesday) Birthday Brig. General Roger A. Pryor! Salutes remembering General Pryor on his birthday week.

 

[Todd Buemi]

General Pryor is my second cousin, three generations removed and my great grandmother Mollie Pryor was his first cousin. I have been researching him for a long time and here is a neat story.

Abraham Lincoln and General Pryor :

He is one of more flippant characters of the Civil War, one who certainly could have died many times over – and yet came out unscathed – and lived to the ripe old age of 90.

He also once got a lucky break from Abraham Lincoln at a point in his life when really everything had gone wrong.

Pryor was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1859 and became a fierce agitator for immediate secession in early 1861.

He was among the last party of confederates to negotiate the surrender of Fort Sumter and almost died there during a visit when he accidentally drank a bottle of potassium iodide that he thought was medicinal whiskey.

Roger Atkinson Pryor then resumed his career in the Confederate Army and was even offered to fire the first shot on Fort Sumter, which he declined.
Pryor moved through the ranks and was ultimately promoted to brigadier general in 62', fought at Manassas under Stonewall Jackson and Antietam where he accused of retreating from the Sunken Road position.

This led to Pryor resigning his commission but he reenlisted as a private in a Virginia cavalry where he was captured in 1864 and confined in Fort Lafayette as a spy.

This is when an old buddy of Pryor stepped in. Washington McLean, owner of the Cincinnati Inquirer visited John W. Forney in early 1865, then the Secretary of the United States Senate, and bullied him into visiting Lincoln in order to obtain a pardon for Pryor.

Forney was, of course, horrified by the idea. "The hot-spur of Congress who fired on Sumter?", he is quoted to screech at the idea.

But McLean won the argument and together they trudged to meet the President who listened patiently to the story. When McLean was done, Lincoln got up and started rummaging through his papers.
"Let me see, I think I have a memorandum here that refers to some good thing done by General Pryor to a party of our Pennsylvania boys who were taken prisoners in an attack upon the Petersburg fortifications"
Apparently, Lincoln found a report that stated Pryor had given them food at a time when his own family was in a most desperate condition for provisions.

"The man who can such kindness to an enemy cannot by cruel and revengeful", Lincoln said and wrote a pardon with which McLean and Forney left.

Only afterwards did they read that Pryor was not only to be released but that he was also to report to Colonel Forney who was to be his host for the foreseeable future.

Of course, Forney was mortified – and with good reason. As long as Pryor stayed in his home, people like Thaddeus Stephens, Forney's neighbor, greeted him with sentences like "How's your Democratic friend and brother this morning"

While Pryor eventually publicly announced his abandonment of the Confederate States cause and even stated that he was glad that the nation had reunited and that the South had lost, he never fully let go of the lost cause in the years to come.

Abraham Lincoln never heard those latter comments - he was just happy that he had gotten Pryor off the hook in time and mentioned his satisfaction over the good company Pryor had in the Secretary of the United States Senate.


Office U.S. Military Telegraph,
Lieut. Genl. Grant War Department,
City-Point, Va. Washington, D.C., Feb. 24 1865
I am in a little perplexity. I was induced to authorize a gentleman to bring R. A. Pryor here with a view of effecting an exchange of him. But since then I have seen a dispatch of yours showing that you specially object to his exchange. Meantime he has reached here & reported to me. It is an ungracious thing for me to send him back to prison, and yet inadmissible for him to remain here long. Can not you help me out with it ? I can conceive that there may be difference to you in days; and I can keep him a few days to accommodate on that point. I have not heard of my son's reaching you.

A LINCOLN.

Information obtained from "All Things Lincoln" web site.