Nathaniel W. Watkins

Nathaniel W. Watkins (January 28, 1796 – March 20, 1876) was a Kentucky-born soldier, lawyer, and Missouri politician who was also a half-brother to prominent nineteenth-century Kentucky politician Henry Clay. He served as a Confederate militia brigadier general during the American Civil War and before that in the War of 1812 and the Mexican–American War. He was a member of the Missouri State Senate and a Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives. Watkins was also a founder of the city of Morley, Missouri.[1]

Nathaniel Watkins was the son of Captain Henry Watkins (1758-1829)[2] and Elizabeth Clay Watkins (1750-1829) who was previously married to the Reverend John Clay and was the mother of 16 children including statesman Henry Clay.[3] Watkins studied law at Transylvania College. After college he moved to Jackson, Missouri, in 1819. During the Civil War he briefly served as a brigadier general in the Missouri State Guard, the first Confederate unit in Missouri. Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson appointed him along with Meriwether Lewis Clark, Sr.; John Bullock Clark, Sr.; William Y. Slack; Alexander William Doniphan; Mosby Parsons; James H. McBride; James S. Rains; and Thomas Beverly Randolph as district/division commanders for the state.[4] Watkins was appointed brigadier general and commander of the first military district which consisted of the Southeast Missouri.[5] He resigned his commission in July 1861. In 1875, Watkins served as vice president of the Missouri Constitutional Convention.

Watkins was married to Eliza Margaret Watson (1810-1878), a daughter of a man named Goah Watson from New Madrid, Missouri.[6] Their children included Nathaniel W. Watkins, Jr. (1848-1879),[7] John C., Henry Clay, Washington E., Richard Jones (1843-1913),[8] William B., Amanda J. (1854-1916),[9] and Elizabeth.[10]