Page:Autobiographies and portraits of the President, cabinet, Supreme court, and Fifty-fifth Congress (IA autobiographiesp02neal).pdf/203

 EDMUND WINSTON PETTUS

, of Selma, was born in Limestone County, Ala., July 6, 1821; is the youngest child of John Pettus and Alice T. Pettus, who was a daughter of Capt. Anthony Winston, of Virginia, a Revolutionary soldier; was educated at the common schools in Alabama and at Clinton College, in Smith County, Tennessee; studied law in the office of William Cooper, then the leader of the bar in north Alabama; was admitted to the bar in 1842, and commenced the practice of law at Gainesville, Ala., as the partner of Hon. Turner Reavis; in 1844 was elected solicitor for the seventh circuit; served as a lieutenant in the Mexican War; in 1849 resigned the office of solicitor and went, with a party of his neighbors, on horseback to California; was elected judge of the seventh circuit after his return to Alabama in 1855, but resigned that office in 1858, and removed to Dallas County, where he now resides; resumed the practice of law as a member of the firm of Pettus, Pegues & Dawson; in 1861 went into the Confederate army as major of the Twentieth Alabama Infantry, and soon afterwards was made lieutenant-colonel of that regiment; in October, 1863, was made a brigadier-general of infantry, and served till the close of the war, and he was in many battles; after the war returned to his home and to the practice of law, and has continued at that work ever since; ever since he became a voter has been a member of the Democratic party; in November, 1896, was nominated by that party, and elected by the legislature