Herschel Vespasian Johnson (18 September 1812 – 16 August 1880) was a US Senator from Georgia (D) from 4 February 1848 to 3 March 1849 (succeeding Walter T. Colquitt and preceding William Crosby Dawson), Governor of Georgia from 9 November 1853 to 6 November 1857 (succeeding Howell Cobb and preceding Joseph E. Brown), and a Confederate States Senator from 19 January 1863 to 10 May 1865 (succeeding John Wood Lewis Sr.).
Biography[]
Herschel Vespasian Johnson was born in Burke County, Georgia in 1812, and he became a lawyer in Louisville in 1839; he moved to the capital of Milledgeville in 1844. In 1844, he was a presidential elector, voting for James K. Polk. He went on to serve in the US Senate from 1848 to 1849 and as Governor from 1853 to 1857, and he attended the state secession convention in 1861. From 1863 to 1865, he served in the Confederate Congress as a senator. After the war, he was a leader in the Reconstruction and headed the state constitutional convention. He served in the Confederate Congress from 1863 to 1865, and he died in 1880.