Alfred Holt Colquitt (20 April 1824-26 March 1894) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-GA 2) from 4 March 1853 to 3 March 1855 (succeeding James Johnson and preceding Martin J. Crawford), Governor of Georgia from 12 January 1877 to 4 November 1882 (succeeding James Milton Smith and preceding Alexander H. Stephens), and a US Senator from Georgia from 4 March 1883 to 26 March 1894 (succeeding Middleton P. Barrow and preceding Patrick Walsh).
Biography[]
Alfred Holt Colquitt was born in Monroe, Georgia on 20 April 1824, the son of Walter T. Colquitt and the brother of Peyton H. Colquitt. He became a lawyer in Monroe in 1846, and he served as a US Army major during the Mexican-American War. After the war, he served in the US House of Representatives from 1853 to 1855 and in the state legislature. At the start of the American Civil War, Colquitt became colonel of the Confederate States Army's 6th Georgia Infantry Regiment, and he assumed brigade command after Brigadier-General Gabriel J. Rains was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines. Colquitt went on to lead his brigade at the Battle of South Mountain, Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, and the Battle of Chancellorsville. Colquitt survived Antietam unscathed even though almost every other officer in the brigade was killed or wounded, and he was then immediately promoted to Brigadier-General. His brigade was then transferred south to garrison Charleston, South Carolina, and he defeated the Union invasion of Florida at the Battle of Olustee. His brigade briefly returned to the Army of Northern Virginia before being sent to North Carolina, where Colquitt ended the war. After the war, Colquitt served as Governor of Georgia from 1877 to 1882, and he was part of the conservative "Bourbon Triumvirate" which ruled Georgia during the 1880s, the others being Joseph E. Brown and John Brown Gordon. Colquitt also served in the US Senate from 1883 until his death in 1894.