The Life & Times of John Brown Baldwin,1820-1873: A Chronicle of Virginia's Struggle with Slavery, Secession, Civil War & Reconstruction Book

John Brown Baldwin, 1820 - 1873

John Brown Baldwin, 1839 graduate of the University of Virginia and an outstanding lawyer, was an influential political figure in Virginia during the Civil War era, a leader of the nearly successful Unionist effort to prevent the State's secession. When that effort failed, he organized and commanded the 52nd Virginia Infantry Regiment until typhoid fever forced him to relinquish command of the Regiment. He was then elected to two terms in the Confederate House of Representatives. Following the War, he served two terms as Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates until the imposition of Republican Reconstruction in 1867. Baldwin then became a leader of the Virginia Conservative Party, organized to oppose Virginia's Radical Republicans. He narrowly lost the party's gubernatorial nomination in 1868 and then served as spokesman for the committee which convinced President Grant and the United States Congress to permit a compromise on the voter eligibility requirements of the new State Constitution.

Baldwin's activities were not limited to the political arena. He served on the University of Virginia Board of Visitors from 1856 until 1863 and was instrumental in the selection of Dr. William Ruffner as superintendent of Virginia's first public school system.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad was one of his most important acts of public service. He developed the railroad's management plan and with its president, Williams Wickham, convinced Collis P. Huntington to finance the construction of the road's final segment between Huntington and White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Completed in 1873, many authorities hold that the C&O could not have been completed without John Baldwin's leadership.