James Barbour

James Barbour (February 26, 1828 – October 29, 1895) was a Virginia lawyer, planter, politician and Confederate officer. He represented Culpeper County, Virginia, in the Virginia General Assembly, as well as in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 and the Virginia secession convention of 1861. Barbour also served among Virginia's delegates to the 1860 Democratic National Convention, and as a major in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Early life and education Barbour was born on February 26, 1828, at Catalpa in Culpeper County, Virginia. Among the First Families of Virginia, his family had been prominent in the area since colonial times, when his namesake great-grandfather (and grandfather) settled in Virginia's Piedmont region. He was among the sons of John S. Barbour, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 15th congressional district, and his wife Ella A. Byrne. Barbour attended Georgetown College from September through December 1840. and then the University of Virginia School of Law between 1841 and 1842. Barbour read law under John Tayloe Lomax in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1844. Early political career In 1850, voters from the central Piedmont district that combined Culpeper County, as well as Greene, Madison and Orange Counties elected Barbour among their three delegates to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850, along with Robert A. Banks and John Woolfolk.