Robert Augustus Toombs

Birth Date

1810-07-02

Death Date

1885-12-15

Gender

Race Description

White

Entity Type

Person

Wilkes County, Georgia, attorney, politician, Confederate secretary of state, and soldier. Wilkes County native. Son of Robert Toombs and Catherine Huling Toombs. Married to Julia A. Dubose Toombs. Father of Louisa Toombs, Sarah A. Toombs, and Julia Pope Toombs. Attended the University of Georgia. Graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York. Graduated from the Law Department at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. Admitted to the Georgia bar. Member of the Georgia General Assembly from 1837 to 1843, with a one year interruption. Member of the House of Representatives of the United States from Georgia from 1844 to 1853. Attorney in Wilkes County in 1850. Owned seventeen enslaved persons in Wilkes County in 1850. Member of the Senate of the United States from 1853 to 1861. Attorney in Wilkes County in 1860. Owned sixteen enslaved persons in Wilkes County in 1860. Resigned on February 4, 1861. Secretary of State for the government of the Confederate State of America from February 1861 to July 1861. Brigadier general in the Army of the Potomac (Confederate) and the Army of Northern Virginia (Confederate) from July 1861 to March 1863. Colonel of the 3rd Cavalary of Georgia Militia in March 1863. Resigned and returned to Washington, Georgia. Self-imposed exile to Cuba and Paris, Francis, from 1865 to 1867.

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Population Schedules, Georgia, Wilkes County, Washington, p. 334A. Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Slave Schedules, Georgia, Wilkes County, Subdivision No. 94. Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Georgia, Wilkes County, p. 77. Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedules, Georgia, Wilkes County, 85. George Justice, "Robert Toombs" in New Georgia Encyclopedia, John C. Inscoe, ed., https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/robert-toombs-1810-1885 (Accessed on March 27, 2018). William C. Davis, The Union that Shaped the Confederacy: Robert Toombs & Alexander H. Stephens (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2001).

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