
Matthew Whitaker "Matt" Ransom (8 October 1826-8 October 1904) was a Confederate States Army Brigadier-General during the American Civil War and a Democratic US Senator from North Carolina from 30 January 1872 to 4 March 1895 (succeeding Joseph Carter Abbott and preceding Marion Butler).
Biography[]
Matthew Whitaker Ransom was born in Warren County, North Carolina in 1826, the brother of Robert Ransom and the cousin of Wharton J. Green. He served as Attorney General of North Carolina from 1853 to 1855, and he went on to serve in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, commanding a brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia and ending the war at Appomattox. After the war, he became a planter and lawyer, and he was elected to the US Senate in 1872, serving until 1895. He served as ambassador to Mexico from 1895 to 1897, and he died at Garysburg in 1904.