Edwards Pierrepont letter to Hugh McCulloch


Descriptive Summary
Title: Edwards Pierrepont letter to Hugh McCulloch
Creator: Pierrepont, Edwards, 1817-1892
Inclusive Dates: 1866 January 22
Language(s): English
Extent: 1 folder(s)
Collection Number: ms2600
Repository: Hargrett Library

Collection Description

Historical Note

Edwards Pierrepont (1817-1892) was a U.S. attorney general and minister to England. He was born Munson Edwards Pierpont in North Haven (now New Haven), Connecticut. Pierrepont opted later in life to drop his first name and adopt an earlier spelling of the family name. Pierrepont came from a distinguished lineage that first arrived in North America in 1650. He was a descendant of one of the founders of Yale College, James Pierpont.. Edwards was groomed for admission into Yale by Noah Porter, who eventually became president of the college. Graduating in 1837, Pierrepont had a distinguished academic career, earning the highest rank in his class and delivering the coveted graduation oratory. Although a member of the Democratic party, Pierrepont was a bitter critic of the secession of southern states in 1860-1861 and advocated the use of force to restore the Union. During the course of the war, he became a prominent War Democrat. In 1862 he was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to try the cases of those individuals who had been imprisoned throughout the North for suspected disloyalty to the Union cause. In 1864 he became involved with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in a plan to promote the presidential candidacy of New York governor Horatio Seymour, who, Pierrepont thought, would keep the country united to continue the war. When George McClellan won the Democratic nomination in 1864, Pierrepont, who opposed McClellan's candidacy, played an instrumental role in organizing War Democrats for Lincoln, helping the president capture a second term. After the election, Pierrepont remained on good terms with Stanton and represented him successfully in December 1865, when a Baltimore resident sued Stanton for illegal imprisonment. Pierrepont's principal defense was the the Habeas Corpus Act of 1863 made such lawsuits against government officials illegal. Later in 1867 Pierrepont was hired by Attorney General Henry Stanbery and Secretary of State William H. Seward to direct the government's prosecution of John Suratt for complicity in the Lincoln assassination conspiracy. Pierrepont, Edwards - National Biography Online http://www.anb.org (Retrieved April 28, 2009)

Scope and Content

The collection consists of one handwritten letter regarding the removal of cotton by Federal troops at Macon, Georgia, belonging to Dennistown and Company.