Alfred Proctor Aldrich (June 14, 1814 – February 12, 1897) was a South Carolina state legislator, South Carolina state judge, pronounced advocate for secession from the Union, member of the state constitutional convention of 1865, a delegate to the 1874 taxpayers' convention, and a practicing Confederate during military reconstruction in the state (refusing to call freedmen for jury duty, very mad the U.S. Army prohibited corporal punishment of convicts, etc.)[1]
Raised and educated in Charleston, he passed the bar at age 18.[2] He served as a regimental staff officer in the Seminole War.[2] He served 12 years in the South Carolina state legislature and was Speaker of the Confederate South Carolina House of Representatives during the American Civil War. He served for a time in the war under Maxcy Gregg but broke his shoulder in a rail accident and retired with a disability. He served as a chief of staff or aide-de-camp to Governor Milledge Bonham during the war.[2] He was removed from the bench in 1867 by U.S. military governor Edward Canby.[1] Aldrich then worked as a lawyer in Augusta, Georgia.[1] He was re-elected to the South Carolina bench in 1878.[1]
His son Robert Aldrich also became a South Carolina legislator. Their cousin James Aldrich was also a South Carolina legislator and judge. Their cousin T. Bailey Aldrich was a noted poet and editor.[2] Alfred P. Aldrich's wife and daughter both wrote notable accounts representing the experiences of white female Confederates during the American Civil War.[3][4][5]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c d Brooks, Ulysses Robert (1908). South Carolina Bench and Bar. State Company. pp. 152–160.
- ^ a b c d Representative Men of the South. C. Robson & Company. 1880. pp. 131–136.
- ^ Richardson, Mrs. Sara Aldrich (1907). ""Burning of the Ursiline Convent by Sherman"". In United Daughters of the Confederacy, South Carolina Division (ed.). South Carolina women in the confederacy. Vol. 1. Columbia, S.C.: The State Company. hdl:2027/coo1.ark:/13960/t45q5hj8t. LCCN 03021011. OL 13498617M – via HathiTrust.
- ^ ""Our women in the war." The lives they lived; the deaths they died. From the weekly News ad Courier, Charleston, S.C. ..." HathiTrust. hdl:2027/hvd.32044004979746. Retrieved 2023-08-07.
- ^ Wheelan, Joseph (2015-03-24). Their Last Full Measure: The Final Days of the Civil War. Hachette Books. pp. 79–80. ISBN 978-0-306-82361-9.
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