Daniel Boone Wright

Daniel Boone Wright (February 17, 1812 – December 27, 1887) was an American slaveholder, secessionist, lawyer, and Democratic politician who served two terms as a U.S. Representative from Mississippi from 1853 to 1857 and later fought against the United States in the American Civil War. He was born near Mount Pleasant, Tennessee, on February 17, 1812. Wright attended the common schools of the area before pursuing higher education. He enrolled at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, an institution then emerging as a regional center for legal and classical studies, and graduated in 1837, preparing for a professional career in the law.

After completing his formal education, Wright studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1840. He commenced the practice of law in Ashland, Mississippi, where he established himself as an attorney in the antebellum South. In addition to his legal work, Wright became a slaveholder, reflecting and materially benefiting from the system of chattel slavery that underpinned the social and economic order of the region. In 1850 he moved to Salem, Mississippi, where he continued the practice of law and expanded his involvement in agricultural pursuits, further entrenching his ties to the plantation-based economy of Mississippi.

Wright’s legal and agricultural activities provided the foundation for his entry into politics as a member of the Democratic Party. Representing Mississippi, he was elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth Congresses, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1853, to March 3, 1857. His service in Congress occurred during a significant period in American history marked by intensifying sectional conflict over slavery, states’ rights, and the future of the Union. As a Democratic representative from a slaveholding state, Wright participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of his Mississippi constituents in national debates. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1856, and at the conclusion of his second term he left Congress and returned to private life.

Following his departure from Congress, Wright resumed the practice of law in Ashland, Mississippi. He continued to be engaged in agricultural pursuits, maintaining his involvement in the local economy and society of northern Mississippi. As national tensions escalated into open conflict, his political and personal commitments aligned with the secessionist cause, and he supported the Confederacy when Mississippi and other Southern states left the Union.

During the American Civil War, Wright fought against the United States in the Confederate States Army. On April 16, 1862, he was appointed lieutenant colonel of the Thirty-fourth Regiment of Mississippi Infantry, placing him in a leadership role within the Confederate military structure. His responsibilities increased as the war progressed: he was appointed colonel of Cavalry, to take effect June 6, 1864, and served as a judge of military courts in General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Cavalry Division. In this capacity, Wright combined his legal training and military rank to oversee judicial proceedings within the Confederate cavalry command, participating in the internal administration of Confederate military justice.

After the Civil War, Wright returned to Ashland, Mississippi, where he again took up the practice of law. He also remained interested in agricultural pursuits in Benton County, continuing the pattern of professional and land-based activity that had characterized his antebellum career. Living through Reconstruction and the reordering of Southern society following emancipation and Confederate defeat, he remained a figure rooted in the legal and agricultural life of his community.

Daniel Boone Wright died in Ashland, Mississippi, on December 27, 1887. He was interred in the McDonald private cemetery near Ashland, Mississippi. His life reflected the trajectory of a Southern slaveholding lawyer and Democratic politician who rose to national office in the 1850s, supported secession, and held command and judicial responsibilities in the Confederate Army before returning to legal practice and agricultural pursuits in the postwar South.