George Washington Logan

George Washington Logan (February 22, 1815 – October 18, 1889) was a prominent North Carolina politician who served in the Confederate States Congress during the American Civil War as a peace and Unionist candidate.

Logan was born in Rutherford County, North Carolina. He served as Clerk of County Court (1841-1849), County Solicitor (1855-1856), member of the Confederate Congress (1863-1865), delegate from Rutherford County to the State Convention (1865) and Brigadier General of the Division of North Carolina Troops.^[1]

Elected to serve in the Second Confederate Congress from 1864 to 1865 "for the two-fold purpose of opposing tyranny and keeping out of the rebel army,"^[2] Logan was a Unionist and opponent of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. He was thought to be involved in the Red Strings, a Unionist movement within the Confederacy. After the Civil War he served in the North Carolina State Legislature from 1866 to 1868 as a member of the Republican Party and served as a Superior Court Judge (1868-1874).

As a Judge, he was a foe of the Ku Klux Klan and in 1874 Judge Logan was defeated by one of his enemies David Schenck, a member of the Klan. As a native white member of the Reconstruction Republican Party, Logan was known as a "scalawag", but was strongly opposed to the policies (and possible corruption) enacted by Governor William Woods Holden.^[3]

In State v. Reinhardt and Love (1869), Judge Logan ordered a verdict of "not guilty" for a case involving Alexander Reinhardt, a "person of color" and Alice Love, a white woman, despite North Carolina's Marriage Act of 1838 banning interracial marriage.^[4]

The George W. Logan House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.^[5] In 1866, he purchased the property now known as Pine Gables and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.^[6]

References[]

^ North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, http://www.lake-lure.com/big%20house.html
^ James Alex Baggett, "The Scalawags: Southern Dissenters in the Civil War and Reconstruction," 2004
^ Hamilton, J.G. de Roulhac, Reconstruction in North Carolina, 395
^ John Wertheimer, Law and Society in the South: A History of North Carolina Court Cases, 2009
^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
^ James Robert Proctor (May 1999). "Pine Gables" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2015-02-01.