Augustus Romaldus Wright

Augustus Wright was born in Wrightsboro, Georgia and attended public school in Appling. Wright attended the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, the founding college of the University of Georgia in Athens where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society. Wright studied law at the Litchfield Law School[1] in Connecticut and was admitted to the State Bar of Georgia in 1835—becoming a practicing attorney in Crawfordville, Georgia,[1] the same year.[2] From 1842 until 1849, Wright served as judge of the superior court of the Cherokee circuit and from 1855 to 1857 as a judge of the superior court of Georgia.[1]

In 1856, Augustus Wright was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served one term from 1857 to 1859.[1] He later served as a delegate to the Georgia Secession Convention and the Confederate Secession Convention.[2]

President Abraham Lincoln offered Wright the position of provisional governor of Georgia but Wright declined.[2] Wright subsequently served in the First Confederate Congress.[3] Augustus Wright organized "Wright’s Legion" of Georgia volunteers and served as a colonel[4] in the Georgia 38th Infantry Regiment for the Confederate States Army in the Army of Northern Virginia.[5]

After the war, Wright served as a member of the Georgia constitutional convention in 1877. He died in 1891 at his home near Rome, Georgia, and was buried in Rome's Myrtle Hill Cemetery.[2]

• Confederate States of America, causes of secession, "Died of states' rights"
• List of signers of the Georgia Ordinance of Secession