Roger Atkinson Pryor Roger Atkinson Pryor ( July 19 , 1828 – March 14 , 1919 ) was a newspaper editor and politician in Virginia who became known for his fiery oratory in favor of secession ; he was elected both to national and Confederate office , and served as a general for the Confederate Army during the American Civil War . In 1865 he moved to New York City to remake his life , and in 1868 brought up his family . He was among a number of influential southerners in the North who became known as " Confederate carpetbaggers . " He became a law partner with Benjamin F . Butler ( based in Boston ) , noted in the South as a hated Union general during the war . Their partnership was financially successful , and Pryor became active in the Democratic Party in the North . In 1877 he was chosen to give a Decoration Day address , in which , according to one interpretation , he vilified Reconstruction and promoted the Lost Cause , while reconciling the noble soldiers as victims of politicians . In 1890 he joined the Sons of the American Revolution , one of the new heritage societies that was created following celebration of the United States Centennial . He was appointed as judge of the New York Court of Common Pleas from 1890 to 1894 , and justice of the New York Supreme Court from 1894 to his retirement in 1899 . On April 10 , 1912 , he was appointed official referee by the appellate division of the state Supreme Court , where he served until his death . He and his wife Sara Agnes Rice Pryor , also a Virginian , had seven children together , the last born in 1868 . Active in founding several heritage societies , she organized fundraising for historic preservation . She was a writer and had several works : histories , memoirs , and novels , published by the Macmillan Company in the first decade of the twentieth century . Her memoirs have been important sources for historians doing research on southern society during and after the Civil War . Early life and education . Pryor was born near Petersburg , Virginia at Montrose as the second child of Lucy Atkinson and Theodorick Bland Pryor , a minister . He had an older sister Lucy . His father was a grandson of Richard Bland and his paternal ancestors were descended from early Virginia colonists . After his mother died young , his father remarried and had several children with his second wife . Pryor graduated from Hampden - Sydney College in 1845 and from the law school of the University of Virginia in 1848 . The following year , he was admitted to the bar , but abandoned law on account of ill health . He started working as a journalist before his marriage . Marriage and family . On November 8 , 1848 , Pryor married Sara Agnes Rice , daughter of Samuel Blair Rice and his second wife , Lucy Walton Leftwich , of Halifax County , Virginia . One of numerous children , she was effectively adopted by a childless aunt , Mary Blair Hargrave and her husband , Dr . Samuel Pleasants Hargrave , and lived with them in Hanover , Virginia . They were slaveholders . When Sara was about eight , the Hargraves moved with her to Charlottesville for her education . Sara and Roger A . Pryor had seven children together : Career . For a few years , Pryor worked at journalism , serving on the editorial staffs of the " Washington Union " in 1852 and the " Daily Richmond Enquirer " in 1854 . The latter was one of the leading papers in the South for 50 years . After getting involved in politics , Pryor was appointed by President Franklin Pierce as a diplomat to Greece in 1854 . Upon his return to Virginia , in 1857 he established " The South , " a daily newspaper in Richmond . He became known as a fiery and eloquent advocate of slavery , states ' rights , and secession ; although he and his wife did not personally own slaves , they came from the slaveholding class . His advocacy of the institution was an example of how , in a " slave society " like Virginia , slavery both powered the economy and underlay the entire social framework . In 1859 , Pryor was elected as a Democrat to the U . S . House of Representatives ; he filled the vacancy in Virginia ' s 4th District caused by the death of William O . Goode . He served from December 7 , 1859 and was re - elected , serving to March 3 , 1861 , when the state seceded . In the House , Pryor became a particular enemy of Representative Thaddeus Stevens , a Republican from Pennsylvania in favor of abolitionism . During his term , Pryor got into a fierce argument with John F . Potter , a representative from Wisconsin , and challenged him to a duel . Having the choice of weapons according to duel protocol , Potter chose bowie knives . Pryor backed out , saying that the knife was not a " civilized weapon . " The incident was widely publicized in the Northern press , which portrayed Pryor ' s refusal to duel as a coup for the North — and as a humiliation of a Southern “ fire eater ” . Electoral History . 1859 Pryor was elected to the U . S . House of Representatives with 55 . 93 % of the vote , defeating fellow Democrat Thomas F . Goode . Civil War service . In early 1861 , Pryor agitated for immediate secession in Virginia , but the state convention did not act . He went to Charleston in April , to urge an immediate attack on Fort Sumter . ( Pryor asserted this would cause Virginia to secede . ) On April 12 , he and Sara accompanied the last Confederate party to the fort before the bombardment ( but stayed in the boat ) . Afterward , while waiting at Fort Johnson , he was offered the opportunity to fire the first shot . But he declined , saying , " I could not fire the first gun of the war . " In 1861 , Pryor was re - elected to his Congressional seat , but , the secession of Virginia meant he never took his seat . ( In this period , several states including Virginia elected U . S . Representatives in the early part of odd years . In that period , Congress generally met late in the year . ) He served in the provisional Confederate Congress in 1861 , and also in the first regular Congress ( 1862 ) under the Confederate Constitution . He entered the Confederate States Army as Colonel of the 3rd Virginia Infantry . He was promoted to brigadier general on April 16 , 1862 . His brigade fought in the Peninsula Campaign and at Second Manassas , where it became detached in the swirling fighting and temporarily operated under Stonewall Jackson . Pryor ' s command initially consisted of the 2nd Florida , 14th Alabama , 3rd Virginia , and 14th Louisiana . During the Seven Days Battles , the 1st Louisiana Battalion ( Coppens ' Zouaves ) were temporarily attached to it . Afterwards , the Louisianans departed and Pryor received two brand - new regiments ; the 5th and 8th Florida Infantry . As a consequence , it became known as " The Florida Brigade " . At Antietam on September 17 , 1862 , he assumed command of Anderson ' s Division in Longstreet ' s Corps when Maj . Gen . Richard H . Anderson was wounded . Pryor proved inept as a division commander , and Union troops flanked his position , causing them to fall back in disorder . As a result , he did not gain a permanent higher field command from the Confederate president . In 1863 , Pryor resigned his commission and his brigade was broken up , its regiments being reassigned to other commands . In August of that year , he enlisted as a private and scout in a Virginia cavalry regiment under General Fitzhugh Lee . Pryor was captured on November 28 , 1864 , and confined in Fort Lafayette in New York as a suspected spy . After several months , he was released on parole by order of President Lincoln and returned to Virginia . In the early days of the war , Sara Rice Pryor accompanied her husband and worked as a nurse for the troops . In 1863 after he resigned his commission , she stayed in Petersburg and struggled to hold their family together , likely with the help of relatives . She later wrote about the war years in her two memoirs published in the early 1900s . Postbellum activities . In 1865 , an impoverished Pryor moved to New York City , invited by friends he had known before the war . He eventually established a law firm with the politician Benjamin F . Butler of Boston . Butler had been a Union general who was widely known and hated in the South . Pryor became active in Democratic politics in New York . Pryor brought his family from Virginia to New York in 1868 , and they settled in Brooklyn Heights . They struggled with poverty for years but gradually began to get re - established . Pryor learned to operate in New York Democratic Party politics , where he was prominent among influential southerners who became known as " Confederate carpetbaggers . " Eventually he gave speeches saying that he was glad that the nation had reunited and that the South had lost . Pryor was elected as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1876 , a year before the federal government pulled its last military forces out of the South and ended Reconstruction . Chosen by the Democratic Party for the important Decoration Day address in 1877 , after the national compromise that resulted in the federal government pulling its troops out of the South , Pryor vilified Reconstruction and promoted the Lost Cause . He referred to all the soldiers as noble victims of politicians , although he had been one who gave fiery speeches in favor of secession and war . Historian David W . Blight has written that Pryor was one of a number of influential politicians who shaped the story of the war as excluding the issue of slavery ; in the following years , the increasing reconciliation between the North and South was based on excluding freedmen and the issues of race . In 1890 , Pryor was appointed as judge of the New York Court of Common Pleas , where he served until 1894 . He was next appointed as justice of the New York Supreme Court , serving from 1894 to 1899 , when he retired . In December 1890 , Pryor joined the New York chapter of the new heritage / lineage organization , Sons of the American Revolution ( SAR ) , for male descendants of participants in the war . When admitted , he and his documented ancestors were all entered under his membership number of 4043 . Annoyed at being excluded from the men ' s club , Sara Agnes Rice Pryor and other women founded chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution , setting up their own lineage society to recognize women ' s contributions and organize for historic preservation and education . In retirement , Pryor was appointed on April 10 , 1912 as official referee by the appellate division of the State Supreme Court . He served until his death seven years later in New York City . He was buried in Princeton Cemetery , in Princeton , New Jersey . , where his wife and their sons Theodorick and William had already been buried . Sara Agnes Rice Pryor . Sara Pryor shared her husband ' s struggles during their early years of poverty in New York . She sewed all the children ' s clothes , gained school scholarships , and helped her husband with his law studies . Realizing that other women and children needed help , she raised money to found a home for them . Like her husband , Sarah Pryor helped found lineage and heritage organizations , including Preservation of the Virginia Antiquities ( since 2009 named Preservation Virginia ) ; the Mary Washington Memorial Association ; the Daughters of the American Revolution ( DAR ) ; and the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America . She became a productive writer , after 1900 publishing two histories on the colonial era , two memoirs and novels . Her " Reminiscences of Peace and War " ( 1904 ) , was recommended by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to its membership for serious study . After her death , Sarah Pryor was buried at Princeton Cemetery , near her sons Theodorick and William . Ancestry . Roger Pryor was a descendant of Richard Bland II , Richard Bland I , Theodorick Bland of Westover , and Governor Richard Bennett