Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/777

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278
CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.

remnant of his command numbering less than one of its brigades eight months before. Fighting to the end, General Walthall commanded a division of Georgians and Tennesseeans in the campaign of 1865 and surrendered with General Johnston. At the close of this remarkable military career he returned to the work of his profession, at Coffeeville, removing to Grenada in 1871. He at once became prominent in the political struggle into which his State was plunged, and, with the same fearless leadership that had characterized his participation in war, he strove to restore to his people the blessings of peace. He led the delegations of his State as chairman in the national Democratic conventions of 1868, 1876, 1880 and 1884, and in the first convention held the position of vice-president. March 12, 1885, he took his seat as United States senator by appointment to succeed L. Q. C. Lamar, the latter having been called to the cabinet of President Cleveland, and was elected by the legislature in 1886 and re-elected in 1888 and 1892. He resigned from the Senate in 1894, on account of ill health, but resumed his seat in March, 1895. While a member of that exalted body he died at Washington, 1898.