Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett

Muscoe Russell Hunter Garnett (* July 25, 1821 at Loretto, Essex County, Virginia; † February 14, 1864 ) was an American politician. Between 1856 and 1861 he represented the state of Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives; then he belonged to the Konföderiertenkongress.

Career

Muscoe Garnett was the grandson of Congressman James M. Garnett (1770-1843) and nephew of Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter (1809-1887), who represented the state of Virginia in both houses of Congress. He was born on the family estate near Elmwood Loretto and taught at home. Then he studied until 1839 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville literature. After a subsequent law degree from the same university and his 1842 was admitted to the bar he began in Loretto to work in this profession. At the same time he proposed as a member of the Democratic Party launched a political career. In the years 1850 and 1851 he took part in meetings as the revision of the Constitution of Virginia. 1852 and 1856 Garnett was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions respective on which Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan were later nominated as a presidential candidate. From 1853 to 1856 he sat in the House of Representatives from Virginia.

After the death of Mr Thomas H. Bayly Garnett was at the due election for the first seat of Virginia as his successor in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he took up his new mandate on 1 December 1856. After two re- elections he could remain until March 3, 1861 Congress. His local time was marked by the increasing tensions in the run-up to the Civil War. Garnett joined the secession movement and was in 1861 a delegate to the meeting at which the exit of the State of Virginia was decided from the Union. Between 1862 and 1864 he was a member of the House of Representatives of the Confederate States. He died on 14 February 1864 the family seat Elmwood typhus.