John B. Floyd

Early family life

John Buchanan Floyd was born on June 1, 1806, on the Smithfield plantation near Blacksburg, Virginia. He was the eldest son of Laetitia Preston and her husband, Governor John Floyd (1783–1837). His brother, Benjamin Rush Floyd (1812–1860), served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly but failed to win the election to the U.S. Congress. His sister Nicketti (1819–1908) married U.S. Senator John Warfield Johnston; his sisters Letitia Preston Floyd Lewis (1814–1886) and Eliza Lavallette Floyd Holmes (1816–1887) also survived their brothers. The elder Floyd served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1817 to 1829 and as governor of Virginia from 1830 to 1834.

Young Floyd, who was of English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish heritage, graduated from South Carolina College in 1826 (by some accounts 1829), where he was a member of the Euphradian Society.

He married his cousin, Sarah (Sally) Buchanan Preston (1802–1879), daughter of Francis Preston, on June 1, 1830. They had no children. Some claimed Floyd had a daughter, Josephine, who married Robert James Harlan in 1852. Kentucky politician James Harlan enslaved Harlan, who may have been James' son. In the 1850s, Robert Harlan lived free in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Career

Admitted to the Virginia bar in 1828, Floyd practiced law in his native state and at Helena, Arkansas, where he lost a large fortune and his health in a cotton-planting venture.

In 1839, Floyd returned to Virginia and settled in Washington County. Voters elected him to the Abingdon town council in 1843 and the Virginia House of Delegates in 1847, and he won re-election once, then resigned in 1849 upon being elected governor of Virginia. As governor, Floyd commissioned the monument to President George Washington in Virginia Capitol Square, and laid the cornerstone in the presence of President Zachary Taylor on February 22, 1850. The second Governor Floyd also recommended the Virginia General Assembly pass a law taxing imports from states that refused to surrender fugitives from Virginian enslavers, which would have violated the Interstate Commerce Clause.

When he left statewide office in 1852, Washington County voters again elected him to the Virginia House of Delegates. Floyd also bought the Abington Democrat from Leonidas Baugh when the paper's founder won appointment as postmaster, and he had J.M.H. Brunet of Petersburg publish it, but Brunet died, and the paper was sold at auction to pay the debts incurred by its next printer, Stephen Pendleton, in 1857.

Active in Democratic Party politics, the former governor was a presidential elector for James Buchanan after the presidential election of 1856.

Secretary of War

In March 1857, Floyd became Secretary of War in Buchanan's cabinet, where his lack of administrative ability was soon apparent, including the poor execution of the Utah Expedition. In 1859, Floyd was warned about plans by John Brown to raid Harpers Ferry by David J. Gue of Springdale, Iowa, where Brown had spent time. Gue was a Quaker who believed that Brown and his men would be killed. Gue decided to warn the government "to protect Brown from the consequences of his own rashness". He sent an anonymous letter to Secretary of War Floyd:

Cincinnati, Aug. 20, 1859. SIR: I have lately received information of a movement of so great importance that I feel it to be my duty to impart it to you without delay.

I have discovered the existence of a secret association, having for its object the liberation of the slaves of the South, by a general insurrection. The leader of the movement is "Old John Brown", late of Kansas. He has been in Canada during the winter, drilling the negroes there, and they are only waiting his word to start for the South to assist the slaves. They have one of their leading men (a white man) in an armory in Maryland; where it is situated I am not enabled to learn.

As soon as everything is ready, those of their number who are in the Northern States and Canada are to come in small companies to their rendezvous, which is in the mountains of Virginia. They will pass down through Pennsylvania and Maryland, and enter Virginia at Harper's Ferry. Brown left the North about three or four weeks ago, and will arm the negroes and strike a blow in a few weeks, so that whatever is done must be done at once. They have a large quantity of arms at their rendezvous, and are probably distributing them already. I am not fully in their confidence. This is all the information I can give you.

I dare not sign my name to this, but trust that you will not disregard this warning on that account.

He was hoping that Floyd would send soldiers to Harpers Ferry and that the extra security would motivate Brown to call off his plans.

Even though President Buchanan offered a $250 reward for Brown, Floyd decided that the letter writer was a crackpot, and disregarded it. He later said that "a scheme of such wickedness and outrage could not be entertained by any citizen of the United States."

Civil War

After the secession of Virginia, Floyd was commissioned a major general in the Provisional Army of Virginia, but on May 23, 1861, he was appointed a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army (CSA). He was first employed in some unsuccessful operations in the Kanawha Valley of western Virginia under Robert E. Lee, where he was both defeated and wounded in the arm at the Battle of Carnifex Ferry on September 10.

General Floyd blamed Brigadier General Henry A. Wise for the Confederate loss at the Battle of Carnifex Ferry, stating that Wise refused to come to his aid. Virginia Delegate Mason Mathews, whose son Alexander F. Mathews was Wise's aide-de-camp, spent several days in the camps of both Wise and Floyd to seek resolution to an escalating feud between the two generals. Afterward, he wrote to President Jefferson Davis urging that both men be removed, stating, "I am fully satisfied that each of them would be highly gratified to see the other annihilated." Davis subsequently removed Wise from his command of the western Virginia region, leaving Floyd as the region's unquestioned superior officer.

In January 1862, he was dispatched to the Western Theater to report to General Albert Sidney Johnston and was given command of a division. Johnston sent Floyd to reinforce Fort Donelson and assume command of the post there. Floyd took command of Fort Donelson on February 13, just two days after the U.S. Army had arrived, becoming the third post commander within a week. Fort Donelson protected the crucial Cumberland River, and indirectly, the manufacturing city of Nashville and Confederate control of Middle Tennessee. It was the companion to Fort Henry on the nearby Tennessee River, which, on February 6, 1862, was captured by United States Army Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and river gunboats. Floyd was not an appropriate choice to defend such a vital point, having political influence but virtually no military experience. General Johnston had other experienced, more senior generals (P. G. T. Beauregard and William J. Hardee) available and made a severe error in selecting Floyd. Floyd had little military influence on the Battle of Fort Donelson itself, deferring to his more experienced subordinates, Brigadier Generals Gideon Johnson Pillow and Simon Bolivar Buckner. As the U.S. forces surrounded the fort and the town of Dover, the Confederates launched an assault on February 15 to open an escape route. Although successful initially, indecision on General Pillow's part left the Confederates in their trenches, facing growing reinforcements for Grant.

In memoriam

Floyd County in northwest Georgia, home to the cities of Rome and Cave Spring, is named for his relative, United States Congressman John Floyd.

Camp Floyd, a U.S. Army post near Fairfield, Utah from July 1858 to July 1861, was initially named after Floyd.