Roger Atkinson Pryor
Pryor in 1916
Member of theConfederate States House of Representatives fromVirginia
In office February 18, 1862 – April 5, 1862
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Charles F. Collier
Delegate from Virginia to theProvisional Confederate Congress
In office July 20, 1861 – February 17, 1862
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Position abolished
Member of theU.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's4th District
In office December 7, 1859 – March 3, 1861
Preceded by	William O. Goode
Succeeded by	George W. Booker
Personal details
Born	(1828-07-19)July 19, 1828 Petersburg, Virginia, U.S.
Died	March 14, 1919(1919-03-14) (aged 90) New York City,New York, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Alma mater	Hampden–Sydney College University of Virginia
Profession	journalist,lawyer,judge
Military service
Allegiance	Confederate States
Branch/service	Confederate States Army
Years of service	1862–1864
Rank	Brigadier general
Unit	3rd Virginia Cavalry Regiment
Commands	3rd Virginia Infantry Regiment Florida Brigade
Battles/wars	American Civil War Peninsula Campaign Second Battle of Bull Run Battle of Antietam

Roger Atkinson Pryor (July 19, 1828 – March 14, 1919) was an American newspaper editor, lawyer, politician and judge. A journalist and U.S. Congressman from Virginia known as a Southern "fire eater" for his fiery oratory in favor of slavery and later secession from the United States and belligerence toward abolitionist colleagues, during theAmerican Civil War Pryor served as a general in the Confederate Army as well as in the Confederate Congress. Following the conflict, Pryor moved toNew York City, and in 1868 his family joined him. He resumed his legal practice and is now considered among influential southerners in the North sometimes called "Confederate carpetbaggers."^[1][2]

Pryor's law partner became Boston-basedBenjamin F. Butler, hated in the South for his service as a Union general during the conflict. Their partnership was financially successful, and Pryor also became active in theDemocratic Party in the North. In 1877 he was chosen to give aDecoration Day address, in which, according to one interpretation, he vilifiedReconstruction and promoted theLost Cause, while reconciling the noble soldiers as victims of politicians.^[3][4] In 1890 he joined theSons of the American Revolution, one of the new heritage societies that was created following celebration of theUnited States Centennial.

Appointed as judge of theNew York Court of Common Pleas from 1890 to 1894, and justice of theNew York Supreme Court from 1894 to his retirement in 1899.^[5] On April 10, 1912, he was appointed official referee by the appellate division of the state Supreme Court, where he served until his death. Particularly after raising their children described below, his wifeSara Agnes Rice published several histories, memoirs and novels, as well as helped found heritage societies and organize fundraising for historic preservation. Her memoirs have been important sources for historians doing research on southern society during and after the Civil War.

Pryor was born nearPetersburg, Virginia, atMontrose, inDinwiddie County as the second child of Lucy Epps Atkinson and Theodorick Bland Pryor, the minister at Petersburg's Washington Street Presbyterian Church (after the Tabb Street Church built in 1844 became overcrowded). He had an older sister Lucy, but his mother died when the boy was three years old. His father remarried and moved his family to "Old Place" nearCrewe inNottoway County about thirty miles away.^[6][7] Since the second marriage produced two daughters (Frances and Ann) and a son (Archibald), Pryor had half-siblings.

Pryor could trace his ancestry to theFirst Families of Virginia. His father was a grandson ofRichard Bland II.^[8] Other paternal ancestors included BurgessesRichard Bland I,Theodorick Bland of Westover, and GovernorRichard Bennett.^[9] His mother was descended from Roger Pleasants Atkinson (1764-1829), whose English-born father was a wealthy Petersburg merchant during the Revolutionary War and whose brothers and cousins also attained distinction in learned professions.^[10] Her mother was Agnes Poythress, whose father was patriotPeter Poythress (1715-1787) and whose ancestors had arrived in the earliest days of the Virginia colony.^[11]

Pryor received a private education appropriate to his class. He graduated fromHampden–Sydney College in 1845 and from the law school of theUniversity of Virginia in 1848.^[8]

On November 8, 1848, Pryor marriedSara Agnes Rice, daughter of Samuel Blair Rice and his second wife, Lucy Walton Leftwich, ofHalifax 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 inHanover, Virginia.^[12] They were slaveholders.^[13] When Sara was about eight, the Hargraves moved with her toCharlottesville where she completed her formal education.^[13] Sara Pryor shared her husband's struggles during their early years of poverty in Virginia (where they lived in various rented houses later demolished), and in New York. She sewed all the children's clothes, gained school scholarships, and helped her husband with his law studies.^[14] Realizing that other women and children needed help, she raised money to found a home for them.^[14]

Like her husband, Sarah Pryor helped found lineage and heritage organizations, including the Society for Preservation of the Virginia Antiquities (since 2009 namedPreservation Virginia); theNational Mary Washington Memorial Association; theDaughters of the American Revolution (DAR); and theNational Society of the Colonial Dames of America.^[15] She became a productive writer, after 1900 through theMacmillan Company publishing two histories on the colonial era, two memoirs and novels. HerReminiscences of Peace and War (1904), was recommended by theUnited Daughters of the Confederacy to its membership for serious study.^[16]

Sara and Roger A. Pryor had seven children together:^[17]

• Maria Gordon Pryor (called Gordon) (1850 - 1928), married Henry Crenshaw Rice (1842 - 1916) and had daughter Mary Blair Rice, who authored several books under the pen name ofBlair Niles.
• Theodorick Bland Pryor (1851 - 1871), died at the age of 20, likely asuicide, as he had been suffering fromdepression.^[18] Admitted toPrinceton College at an early age, he was its first mathematical fellow; he also studied atCambridge University, and had been studying law.^[18]
• Roger Atkinson Pryor, became a lawyer in New York.^[19]
• Mary Blair Pryor, married Francis Thomas Walker^[19] and, as documented in *"Mary Blair Destiny".^[20] she had daughter Mary Blair Walker Zimmer^[21] Buried in Princeton Cemetery.
• William Rice Pryor (b. c.1860 - 1900^[22]), became a physician and surgeon in New York and died young.^[19]
• Lucy Atkinson Pryor, married the architectA. Page Brown; in 1889 they moved to San Francisco, California.
• Francesca (Fanny) Theodora Bland Pryor (b. 31 December 1868), Petersburg, VA, marriedWilliam de Leftwich Dodge, a painter; they lived in Paris^[19] and New York.

Roger and Sara Pryor's great-great-great-granddaughter is Erin Richman, author of *"Mary Blair Destiny".

In 1849, Pryor was admitted to thebar, but ill health caused him to (temporarily) abandon his private legal practice. He started working as ajournalist, serving on the editorial staffs of theWashington Union in 1852 and theDaily Richmond Enquirer in 1854.^[8] The latter was one of the leading papers in the South for 50 years.

PresidentFranklin Pierce appointed Pryor, who had become involved in Virginia politics, as a diplomat toGreece in 1854.^[8] Upon returning to Virginia, in 1857 Pryor establishedThe South, a daily newspaper in Richmond. He became known as a fiery and eloquent advocate ofslavery, southernstates' rights, andsecession; although he and his wife did not personally own slaves, they came from the slaveholding class.^[23] 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.^[24]

In 1859, Pryor was elected as aDemocrat to theU.S. House of Representatives; he filled the vacancy in Virginia's 4th District caused by the death ofWilliam O. Goode. He served from December 7, 1859, and was re-elected, serving to March 3, 1861, when the state seceded.^[8] In the House, Pryor became a particular enemy of RepresentativeThaddeus Stevens, aRepublican from Pennsylvania in favor ofabolitionism.^[25]

During his term, Pryor got into a fierce argument withJohn F. Potter, a representative from Wisconsin, and challenged him to a duel.^[26] Having the choice of weapons according to duel protocol, Potter chosebowie knives. Pryor backed out, saying that the knife was not a "civilized weapon."^[26] 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 cowardly humiliation of a Southern "fire eater".^[27]

During an anti-slavery speech by Illinois Republican (and cousin^{[clarification needed]})Owen Lovejoy on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on April 5, 1860, Lovejoy condemned the Democrats for their racist views and support of slavery. As Lovejoy gave his speech, Pryor and several other Democrats in the audience, grew irate and incensed over Lovejoy's remarks and threatened him with physical harm, with several Republicans rushing to Lovejoy's defense.^[28]

In early 1861, Pryor agitated for immediatesecession in Virginia, but thestate convention did not act. He went toCharleston in April, to urge an immediate attack onFort Sumter.^[8] (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).^[29] Afterward, while waiting atFort 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."^[29] Pryor almost became the first casualty of the Civil War - while visiting Fort Sumter as an emissary, he assumed a bottle of potassium iodide in the hospital was medicinal whiskey and drank it; his mistake was realized in time for Union doctors to pump his stomach and save his life.^[30]

In 1861, Pryor was re-elected to his Congressional seat, but, Virginia declaring secession meant he never took his seat.^[8] (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 provisionalConfederate Congress in 1861, and also in thefirst regular Congress (1862) under theConfederate Constitution.^[8]

He entered theConfederate army ascolonel of the3rd Virginia Infantry Regiment.^[8] He was promoted tobrigadier general on April 16, 1862. His brigade fought in thePeninsula Campaign and atSecond Manassas, where it became detached in the swirling fighting and temporarily operated underStonewall Jackson. Pryor's command initially consisted of the2nd Florida, 14th Alabama, 3rd Virginia, and 14th Louisiana. During theSeven Days Battles, the 1st (Coppens') Louisiana Zouave Battalion was temporarily attached to it. Afterwards, the Louisianans departed and Pryor received two brand-new regiments; the5th and8th Florida Infantry. As a consequence, it became known as "The Florida Brigade". AtAntietam on September 17, 1862, he assumed command of Anderson's Division inLongstreet's Corps whenMaj. Gen.Richard H. Anderson was wounded.^[31] Pryor proved inept as a division commander, and Union troops flanked his position, causing them to fall back in disorder.^[23][32]

As a result, he did not gain a permanent higher field command from the Confederate president. Following his adequate performance at theBattle of Deserted House, later in 1863 Pryor resigned his commission and his brigade was broken up, its regiments being reassigned to other commands.^[8] In August of that year, he enlisted as a private and scout in the3rd Virginia Cavalry Regiment under GeneralFitzhugh Lee. Pryor was captured on November 28, 1864, and confined inFort Lafayette in New York as a suspected spy.^[31] After several months, he was released on parole by order ofPresidentLincoln and returned to Virginia.^[31] CSA War Clerk and diarist, John B. Jones, mentioned Pryor in his April 9, 1865, entry from Richmond, VA, "Roger A. Pryor is said to have remained voluntarily in Petersburg, and announces his abandonment of the Confederate States cause."^[33]

In the early days of the war, Sara Rice Pryor accompanied her husband and worked as a nurse for the troops.^[34] In 1863 after he resigned his commission, she stayed in Petersburg and struggled to hold their family together,^[34] likely with the help of relatives. She later wrote about the war years in her two memoirs published in the early 1900s.^[23]

In 1865, an impoverished Pryor moved toNew York City, invited by friends he had known before the war.^[23] He eventually established a law firm with the politicianBenjamin F. Butler of Boston.^[8] Butler had been a Union general who was widely known and hated in the South.^[31] Pryor became active in Democratic politics in New York.

Pryor brought his family from Virginia to New York in 1868, and they settled inBrooklyn 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."^[35] Eventually he gave speeches saying that he was glad that the nation had reunited and that the South had lost.^[8][23] 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 endedReconstruction.

Chosen by the Democratic Party for the importantDecoration Day address in 1877, after the national compromise that resulted in the federal government pulling its troops out of the South, Pryor vilifiedReconstruction and promoted theLost 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.^[3] HistorianDavid 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.^[3][4][36]

In 1890, Pryor was appointed as judge of theNew York Court of Common Pleas, where he served until 1894. He was next appointed as justice of theNew York Supreme Court, serving from 1894 to 1899, when he retired.^[5]

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.^[37] Annoyed at being excluded from the men's club, Sara Agnes Rice Pryor and other women founded chapters of theDaughters 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 theNew York State Supreme Court.

Pryor's judicial career ended with his death on March 14, 1919, inNew York City.^[1][5] He was buried inPrinceton Cemetery, inPrinceton, New Jersey.,^[5] where his wife and their sons Theodorick and William had already been buried. His daughter, Mary Blair Pryor Walker, was also buried near him after her death.^[38]

A Virginia highway marker honors Pryor's birthplace near Petersburg, Virginia.^[39]

• List of American Civil War generals (Confederate)

• Eicher, John H., andDavid J. Eicher,Civil War High Commands. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.ISBN 978-0-8047-3641-1.
• Eicher, David J.The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001.ISBN 978-0-684-84944-7.
• James, Edward T., James, Janet Wilson, Boyer, Paul S.;Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary, Harvard University Press, (1971)ISBN 0-674-62734-2

• United States Congress."Roger A. Pryor (id: P000558)".Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved on 2008-02-13
• Pryor, Roger A. "Essays and Addresses". New York: Neale Pub. Co., 1912.OCLC 6060863.
• Richman, Erin L. "Mary Blair Destiny". Two Goddesses Publishing, 2019.ISBN 978-1-7330180-0-5.
• Scott, Henry Wilson, Ingalls, John James;Distinguished American Lawyers with Their Struggles and Triumphs in the Forum (1890)
• Sifakis, Stewart.Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts On File, 1988.ISBN 978-0-8160-1055-4.
• Sutherland, Daniel E.The Confederate Carpetbaggers. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.ISBN 978-0-8071-1393-6.
• Warner, Ezra J.Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959.ISBN 978-0-8071-0823-9.
• Waugh, John C.;Surviving the Confederacy: Rebellion, Ruin, and Recovery : Roger and Sara Pryor during the Civil War, Harcourt, (2002)ISBN 0-15-100389-0
• Welsh, Jack D.;Medical Histories of Confederate Generals, Kent State University Press, (1999)ISBN 0-87338-649-3
• Wilson, James Grant, Fiske, John;Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, D. Appleton, (1900)

• Sarah E. Gardner,Blood And Irony: Southern White Women's Narratives of the Civil War, 1861-1937, University of North Carolina Press, 2006
• Holzman, Robert S.Adapt or Perish; The Life of General Roger A. Pryor, C.S.A., Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1976.
• Richman, Erin L. "Mary Blair Destiny", Two Goddesses Publishing, 2019.

• Virginia State Highway Memorial Marker
• Mary Blair Destiny

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Pryor, Roger Atkinson".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 533.

• 1828 births
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• Burials at Princeton Cemetery
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• Bland family (Virginia)
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• People from Dinwiddie County, Virginia
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