James L . Alcorn James Lusk Alcorn ( November 4 , 1816December 19 , 1894 ) was a prominent American political figure in Mississippi during the 19th century . He was a leading southern white Republican during Reconstruction in Mississippi , where he served as governor and U . S . Senator . A moderate Republican , he had a bitter rivalry with Radical Republican carpetbagger Adelbert Ames , who defeated him in the 1873 Mississippi gubernatorial race . He briefly served as a brigadier general of Mississippi state troops at times in Confederate States Army service during the early part of the American Civil War . Only James Longstreet had been a higher - ranking Confederate general among those who joined in the post - Civil War Republican Party . Early life and career . Born near Golconda , Illinois , to a Scots - Irish family , he attended Cumberland College in Kentucky and served as deputy sheriff of Livingston County , Kentucky , from 1839 to 1844 . He served in the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1843 before moving to Mississippi . In 1844 , he set up a law practice in Panola County , Mississippi . As his law practice flourished and his property holdings throughout the Mississippi Delta increased , he became a wealthy man . By 1860 , he owned nearly a hundred slaves and held lands valued at a quarter of a million dollars . He was a leader of the Whig Party . He served in the Mississippi House of Representatives and Mississippi Senate during the 1840s and 1850s . He ran for Congress in 1856 but was defeated . As a delegate to the Mississippi convention of 1851 , called by Democratic Governor John A . Quitman to build momentum for secession , Alcorn helped defeat that movement . Like many Whig planters , Alcorn initially opposed secession , pleading with the extremists to reflect for a moment on the realities of regional power . He foretold a horrific picture of a beaten South , " when the northern soldier would tread her cotton fields , when the slave should be made free and the proud Southerner stricken to the dust in his presence . " Civil War . When secession passed , Alcorn cast his lot with the Confederacy and was selected as a brigadier general by the state . During the American Civil War , he was in uniform for about 18 months of inconspicuous service , mainly in raising troops and in garrison duty . He was taken prisoner in Arkansas in 1862 , was paroled late in the year , and returned to his plantation . In 1863 , he was elected to the Mississippi state legislature . Alcorn lost both his sons , James Alcorn , Jr . , and Henry Alcorn , to the war . J . L . Alcorn Jr . committed suicide in 1879 after returning home from the war partially deaf and a drunk ( most likely due to what today would be diagnosed as PTSD ) . The monument on the " Mound , " the location of the family cemetery at Alcorn ' s plantation , attributes Jame Lusk Alcorn , Jr ' s death to the ' insane war of rebellion " ( undoubtedly Alcorn ' s words ) . Alcorn had a statue made of himself , and after his death it was put on the mound , on his grave . Henry " Hal " Alcorn ran away against his father ' s wishes during the war to join the military , fell sick , was left behind , and captured . He made his way to Richmond after the surrender and some family friends tried to help him get home , but he died on the way of typhoid fever . Alcorn managed to maintain his wealth during the Civil War by trading cotton with the North . After the war , he was estimated to be among the fifty wealthiest men in the New South . Postbellum career . He was elected to the U . S . Senate in 1865 , but , like all Southerners , was not allowed to take a seat as Congress was pondering Reconstruction . He supported suffrage for Freedmen and endorsed the Fourteenth Amendment . Alcorn became the leader of the Scalawags , who comprised about a fourth of the Republican Party officials in the state , in coalition with carpetbaggers , African - Americans who had been free before the outbreak of the civil war and Freedmen . Mississippi had a majority of African - Americans , the overwhelming majority of whom were Freedmen , who at this point had no desire to vote for the Democratic Party which would have not welcomed them anyway , thus the majority of votes for the Republican candidates came from African - Americans even though the majority of Republican office holders were whites . James Alcorn was elected by the Republicans as governor in 1869 , serving , as Governor of Mississippi from 1870 to 1871 . As a modernizer , he appointed many like - minded former Whigs , even if they were now Democrats . He strongly supported education , including public schools for blacks only , and a new college for them , now known as Alcorn State University . He maneuvered to make his ally , Hiram Revels , its president . Radical Republicans opposed Alcorn , angry at his patronage policy . One complained that Alcorn ' s policy was to see " the old civilization of the South " modernized " " rather than lead a total political , social and economic revolution . Alcorn resigned the governorship to become a U . S . Senator ( 1871 – 1877 ) , replacing his ally Hiram Revels , the first African American senator . Senator Alcorn urged the removal of the political disabilities of white southerners and rejected Radical Republican proposals to enforce social equality by federal legislation ; he denounced the federal cotton tax as robbery , and defended separate schools for both races in Mississippi . Although a former slaveholder , he characterized slavery as " a cancer upon the body of the Nation " and expressed the gratification which he and many other Southerners felt over its destruction . Alcorn led a furious political battle with Senator Adelbert Ames , the carpetbagger who led the other faction of the Republican Party in Mississippi . The fight ripped apart the Republican Party . In 1873 , they both sought a decision by running for governor . Ames was supported by the Radicals and most African Americans , while Alcorn won the votes of conservative whites and most of the scalawags . Ames won by a vote of 69 , 870 to 50 , 490 . During the Reconstruction era , Alcorn was an advocate of modernizing the South . Although a believer in white supremacy , he supported civil and political rights for African - Americans . In a letter to his wife ( Amelia Alcorn , née Glover , of Rosemount Plantation in southern Alabama ) , he states that Southerners must make the Negro their friend or " the path ahead will be red with blood and damp with tears . " Alcorn was the founder of the Mississippi levee system , and was instrumental in their rebuilding after the Civil War . After his retirement from politics , he was active in levee affairs and was a delegate to the Mississippi constitutional convention of 1890 , in which he supported the black disenfranchisement clause of the new constitution . He was twice married : in 1839 to Mary C . Stewart of Kentucky , who died in 1849 ; and in 1850 to Amelia Walton Glover of Alabama . In his later life , Alcorn practiced law in Friars Point , Mississippi and lived quietly at his plantation , Eagle ' s Nest , in Coahoma County , Mississippi , until his death and interment in the family cemetery on his estate in 1894 . Honors . Alcorn County , Mississippi , is named in his honor , as is Alcorn State University , originally set up for African Americans . References . Retrieved on 2008 - 08 - 12