Alphabet File page 299
One notable exception was Brig. Gen. Roger A. Pryor, C. S. A., who made a remarkable transition from fiery Virginia secessionist to New York State Supreme Court Justice.
Pryors granddaughter, Mrs. Hunter S. Kimbrough of Bay St. Louis, sees him through a childs eyes as a gentle and affectionate man who died at the age of 90 in 1919.
Letters to the grandchild he adored indeed reveal a gentle nature. It is safe to say, however, that Gen. Pryor was less than gentle to his enemies.
Robert S. Holzmans biography of Pryor, Adapt or Perish, published in 1976, pictures a remarkable but little known general officer of the Confederate army.
As a young man, Pryor lived by the code duello. Douglas Southall Freeman wrote of him that he was the most notorious duelist of his day, an assessment that exaggerates but is not entirely false.
Pryor was editor of the Richmond Enquirer during pre-war days when accuracy with a pistol was as essential to an editor as command of the language. He fought Oswald R. Finney, a Whig member of the Virginia Senate, and dispatched him with a chest would that witnesses thought would be mortal. Finney, however, recovered and lived to be 91. On another occasion, Pryor agreed to a duel but fired his pistol into the ground rather than kill his opponent.
Considering Pryors proclivity for standing firm for his beliefs, it is no surprise that as a secessionist congressman from Virginia he accompanied emissaries of Beauregards staff to Fr. Sumter and may have played a part in the decision to fire on the Fort and launch the Civil War.
Holzman tells us that Pryor fought in the battles of Yorktown, Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Gaines Mill, Second Manassas, Antietam and the Seven Days Battle.
After the defeat at Gettysburg, Pryor decided that the army had too many brigadier generals and not enough privates. He resigned his commission in the absence of an appropriate command and enlisted as a private in Gen. Fitzhugh Lees cavalry.
As a private, Pryor was used as a scout because he knew the Virginia countryside intimately. His family remained at Petersburg, which was under constant siege.
An observing member of the British Parliament said of the Pryor household, I am going home and tell the English women what I have seen here: two boys reading Caesar while the shells are thundering, and their mother looking on without fear.
Pryors fighting days ended when he was captured while exchanging newspapers with Union officers, as was the custom.
In Adapt or Perish, Pryors prison cell at Fort Lafayette in New York is described as a casemate that he shared with 12 other prisoners.
Straw mats on the floor were their beds. A grate was provided for heating and cooking, but the prisoners had to fetch their own fuel from the coal cellar. Once daily, he (Pryor) was allowed to walk on the ramparts, from which there was a view of New York City.
The imprisoned Virginian never dreamed that in years to come he would administer justice to residents of that city from the states supreme bench.
At wars end, Pryor was indicted by the United States government for treason and could no longer live safely in the South. He fled to New York where he studied law and was eventually admitted to the bar.
New Yorkers didnt accept the former Confederate general with affection.
Pryor wrote to his wife in Virginia at that time that obstacles to the success of a rebel in this city are almost insurmountable.
Obstacles there were, but Pryor surmounted them. Gradually, he won the respect of New Yorkers. By 1874, he was a celebrity as defense counsel in the Henry Ward Beecher adultery trial.
His next most famous court case was as defender of the Haymarket Anarchists. In 1896, at the age of 67, Pryor was appointed to the bench of the Supreme Court of the state of New York.
He served with distinction as judge, retiring in 1898 when he was 70, as required by law. The following year he reentered the practice of law.
At the age of 81, Pryor offered a lesson in good mannners to a young New Yorker who had deliberately rammed into the octogenarian on an elevated railway car. Pryor ordered the conductor to hold the train for two minutes, then proceeded to pound the younger man into submission with an umbrella.
The courage that sustained him during the bloody Civil War was with him until his final breath. Had Lee been able to bypass government red tape and give Gen. Pryor the command he should have had, his name would be as familiar today as the names of Beauregard, Forrest, Johnston, Early or Fitz Lee.
If history has unwittingly overlooked this remarkable soldier and jurist, Holzmans volume remedies that defect. It should be more widely read.
(THE SUN/DAILY HERALD; Mississippi Gulf Coast; Sunday, June 9, 1995)
Public Schools - Bay St. Louis City Schools see Bay St. Louis City of---Schools
Pucheu, C. R. r 524 Sycamore (Ph 50)
Pucheu, Evan r McDonald Ln. (Ph 55)
Pucheu, J. C. r 246 Ballentine (Ph 55)
Pucheu, Joseph C. 400 3rd. (Ph 50)
Pucheu, L. F. Sr. r 311 St. Geo. (Ph 55)
Pucheu's Cleaners, 303 Citizen (Ph 48 thru 50) 309 St. Geo. (Ph 55)
Pulatsek, The Misses returned to the Cresant City on Monday morning. (SCE/10/08/1892)
Pulatsek, Mrs., returned to New Orleans this week. (SCE 10/15/1892)
Pulatsek, Mrs., and family returned Sunday evening to their home in New Orleans. (SCE 10/21/1893)
Pulitzer, Jack M. r ___ S. Beach (Ph 48 thru 50)
Pulitzer, Morris H. r ___S. Beach (Ph 48 thru 50)
Pulizzano, Henry, 345 Ulman Av., (Ph 48 thru 50)
Pullen, Mrs. of Ohio, is spending the winter at Mrs.
Sextons. (SCE 11-5-1892)
Pullizzano, Henry r Hwy 90 (Ph 55)
Pullman, Henry m Garcia, Martha 3-1-1911 (PC&C)
Pulpepet?, John - 40 miles up Pearle River (From a list of names who claims land under "Requite's" given since the year 1803 and mostly about the year of 1810 as viz assessment. VF Tax Rolls)
Pumilia, Luca r 116 Burnette (Ph 49-50)
Pung, Robt. E. V. Rev. ofc. 201 Ruella (Ph 55)
Purnell, Ms. - See article named "Methodist" on alphabetical list
Pursley, Paul A. Dr. r 220 N. Bch. (Ph 55)
Purvis, Mr. B. - Smith, Mr. Hiram, of Picayune, had two weddings take place in his home. The bridegrooms are Messrs. B. Purvis and B. Crofferd, Louisianians, and the brides Misses B. Spiers and L. Smith, Mississippians. (SCE 02/04/1893) (Boly.)
Puyau, E. J. r 129 Leopold (Ph 55)
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Quality Furniture Store. 107 S. Beach. (1968 ph.)
Quarell, Rev. Mr. M. and wife, of Cincinnati, Ohio, are among the Northern winter visitors at the Bay, the Guests of Mrs. Sexton. (SCE 11/5/1892)
Quavre, Jean - WHT POL 1, FPC 0, SLV 0. (Hancock County, Mississippi Tax Rolls 1820, VF Tax Rolls)
Quigley, T. A. Jr. Dr. phys. 125 Carroll Ave. (Ph 55) r 620 N. Bch. (Ph 55)
Quinlan, C. Gregg Jr. 506 N. Beach. (1968 ph.)
Quinlan, Diddy Anne, daughter of Charles Quinlan of Nicholson Avenue has been chosen a member of the University Activities Council at the University of Southern Mississippi where she's a Junior (HHJ 1/19/1973)