Augustus Romaldus Wright

Augustus Romaldus Wright (June 16, 1813 – March 31, 1891) was an American politician, lawyer, and jurist from Georgia who served one term in the United States House of Representatives and later held office in the government of the Confederate States of America. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented Georgia in Congress during a significant period in American history and briefly served against the United States as a colonel in the Confederate States Army during the Civil War before resigning his commission to serve in the Confederate Congress.

Wright was born on June 16, 1813, in Wrightsboro, Columbia County, Georgia. He attended public schools in nearby Appling, Georgia, before enrolling at the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, the founding college of the University of Georgia in Athens. While at Franklin College, he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society, an organization that fostered debate and oratory among its students. Seeking formal legal training, Wright studied law at the Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, one of the earliest and most influential law schools in the United States. He was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 1835 and immediately began the practice of law in Crawfordville, Georgia. Like many Southern politicians and planters of his era, Wright owned slaves.

Wright’s legal career advanced rapidly, and he became a prominent figure in Georgia’s judiciary. From 1842 until 1849, he served as judge of the superior court of the Cherokee circuit, presiding over a large and developing region in northwestern Georgia. After returning to private practice for several years, he again took the bench and served from 1855 to 1857 as a judge of the superior court of Georgia. His judicial service during these years helped establish his reputation as a leading lawyer and public figure in the state.

In 1856, Wright was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives. He served one term in the Thirty-fifth Congress from March 4, 1857, to March 3, 1859, representing Georgia and participating in the legislative process during the mounting sectional tensions that preceded the Civil War. As a member of the Democratic Party representing Georgia, he contributed to the work of Congress at a time when debates over slavery, states’ rights, and the future of the Union were increasingly intense, and he sought to represent the interests of his constituents in that fraught national context.

As the secession crisis deepened, Wright became involved in Georgia’s internal political struggles over the question of leaving the Union. He ran as an anti-secession delegate for a seat at the Georgia Secession Convention but was defeated by his own son-in-law, Francis Shropshire. Despite his opposition to immediate secession, he nonetheless participated in the emerging Confederate political order. In 1861, he was chosen as one of ten Georgia delegates to the Confederate Constitution Convention in Montgomery, Alabama, where the Confederate States of America framed its foundational governing document.

During the Civil War, Wright combined military and political service to the Confederacy. He organized “Wright’s Legion” of Georgia volunteers, which became part of the 38th Georgia Infantry Regiment in the Army of Northern Virginia, and he served as a colonel in that regiment. His military service was relatively brief; he resigned his commission to take a seat in the First Confederate Congress, where he served as a representative from Georgia. In 1864, as the war turned against the Confederacy, President Abraham Lincoln reportedly offered Wright the position of provisional governor of Georgia on the condition that the state withdraw from the Confederacy, an offer that ultimately came to nothing as Georgia did not leave the Confederate cause before the war’s end.

After the collapse of the Confederacy, Wright resumed his role in Georgia’s public life during Reconstruction and the post-Reconstruction period. He remained a figure of influence in state politics and, in 1877, served as a member of the Georgia constitutional convention, which drafted a new state constitution that would shape Georgia’s governance in the late nineteenth century. In his later years, Wright lived near Rome, Georgia. He died at his home there on March 31, 1891, and was buried in Myrtle Hill Cemetery in Rome.