John Brown Gordon

John Brown Gordon was one of Robert E. Lee's most trusted Confederate generals during the American Civil War. After the war, he was a strong opponent of Reconstruction and is thought by some to have been the titular leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia during the late 1860s. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a U.S. Senator from 1873 to 1880, and again from 1891–1897. He also served as the 53rd Governor of Georgia from 1886 to 1890. Gordon was descended from an ancient Scottish lineage, the fourth child of twelve, born on his father's plantation in Upson County, Georgia.... Many Gordon family members fought in the Revolutionary War. He was an outstanding student at the University of Georgia, were he was a member of the Mystical 7 Society, but left before graduating. He studied law in Atlanta and passed the bar examination. Gordon and his father, Zachariah, invested in a series of coal mines in Tennessee and Georgia. He also practiced law. He represented Georgia in Congress for many years after the Civil War.
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