Alfred Moore Scales (26 November 1827-9 February 1892) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-NC 6) from 4 March 1857 to 3 March 1859 (succeeding Richard Clauselle Puryear and preceding James Madison Leach) and from NC-5 from 4 March 1875 to 30 December 1884 (succeeding Leach and preceding James W. Reid), and the Democratic Governor of North Carolina from 21 January 1885 to 17 January 1889 (succeeding Thomas Jordan Jarvis and preceding Daniel Gould Fowle).
Biography[]
Alfred Moore Scales was born in Reidsville, North Carolina in 1827, and he became a lawyer in Madison. He became county solicitor, served in the state legislature for four terms, served in the US House of Representatives from 1857 to 1859, and served as a Southern Democrat presidential elector in 1860. During the American Civil War, he served as colonel of the 13th North Carolina Infantry Regiment during the Peninsula Campaign, the Seven Days Battles, the Battle of Fredericksburg, and the Battle of Chancellorsville, and as a Brigadier-General in command of A.P. Hill's light division at the Battle of Gettysburg, suffering heavy losses at Seminary Ridge and being wounded in the leg. While he later fought in the Overland Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg, he returned home to recover from his wound as the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered at Appomattox. He was pardoned in 1866, and he distinguished himself as a lawyer before returning to Congress from 1875 to 1884 and as Governor from 1885 to 1889. He was a staunch liberal during his tenure in Congress. Scales died in Greensboro in 1892 while serving as a bank president.