- LeRoy Pope Walker
Infobox US Cabinet official
name=LeRoy Pope Walker
order=1st
title=Confederate States Secretary of War
term_start=February 25 ,1861
term_end=September 16 ,1861
president=Jefferson Davis
predecessor="Office instituted"
successor=Judah P. Benjamin
birth_date=birth date|1817|2|7|mf=y
birth_place=Huntsville, Alabama , U.S.
death_date=death date and age|1884|8|23|1817|2|7|mf=y
death_place=U.S.
party=Democrat
spouse=Eliza Dickson Pickett
profession=Politician LeRoy Pope Walker (
February 7 ,1817 –August 23 ,1884 ) was the firstConfederate States Secretary of War and issued the orders for the firing onFort Sumter , which began theAmerican Civil War . Resigning within the year, he served briefly as brigadier general in theConfederate States Army , but saw no combat.A lawyer by profession, Walker was born in
Huntsville, Alabama , the son ofJohn Williams Walker and Matilda Pope, and a grandson ofLeRoy Pope . He married Eliza Dickson Pickett onJuly 29 1850 .In March 1861, the Southern states that had seceded from the Union appointed special commissioners to travel to those other Southern states that had yet to secede. Walker was chosen as the Commissioner from Alabama to the Tennessee Secession Convention, where he publicly read Alabama's Articles of Secession and tried to persuade Tennessee politicians to vote to do likewise.
Walker was particularly ill-suited to be Secretary of War, as he stated that all of the blood shed in the Civil War could be wiped up with a pocket handkerchief.
Walker was buried in
Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville.External links
*findagrave|11101 Retrieved on
2008-08-10
* [http://www.csawardept.com/history/Cabinet/LPWalker/index.html Biography at Confederate States War Department website]
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