Archibald Wright (November 29, 1809 – September 13, 1884)"Other Deaths"
'' Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette'' (September 15, 1884), p. 4. was a Tennessee lawyer who served as a justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1858 to 1885.

Early life, education, military service, and career

Born in

Maury County, Tennessee Maury County ( ) is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee, in the Middle Tennessee region. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 100,974. Its county seat is Columbia, Tennessee, C ...

, to very poor parents of Scottish ancestry, shortly after his birth his family moved to the adjoining Giles County.Albert D. Marks, "The Supreme Court of Tennessee", Part II, '' The Green Bag'', Volume 5 (1893), p. 180-82. He attended Mount Pleasant Academy and Giles College, where he studied diligently, and then sought out Judge Bramblette in Pulaski to study law. Bramblette was initially skeptical, but accepted Wright as a student, and Wright gained admission to the bar in 1832, opening a law office in Pulaski, Tennessee. Wright enlisted to fight in the

Second Seminole War The Second Seminole War, also known as the Florida War, was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in Florida between the United States and groups collectively known as Seminoles, consisting of Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans and ...

, and served for the duration of the war, thereafter returning to practice law in Pulaski. He was elected to represent Giles County in the Tennessee State Legislature in 1847, remaining in Pulaski until 1851, when his growing success in legal practice prompted him to move to Memphis, Tennessee. There, he formed a partnership with Thomas J. Turley.

Judicial service and later life

Although Wright reportedly "did not solicit the position", on June 19, 1858, Governor

Isham G. Harris Isham Green Harris (February 10, 1818July 8, 1897) was an American politician who served as the 16th governor of Tennessee from 1857 to 1862, and as a U.S. senator from 1877 until his death. He was the state's first governor from West Tennessee. ...

appointed Wright to a seat on the state supreme court vacated by the death of Justice

William R. Harris William R. Harris (September 26, 1803 – June 19, 1858) was a justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1855 to 1858. Early life, education, and career Born in Montgomery County, North Carolina,Albert D. Marks, "The Supreme Court of Tennessee ...

. In August, 1858, he was elected to a full term. One account contrasted his practice as a judge, and as lawyer afterward: Wright did not serve out his elected supreme court term due to the American Civil War. Wright "ardently espoused the cause of the Confederacy". His only two sons enlisted in the Confederate Army, and Wright, too old for active service himself, followed the army so as to remain close to his sons. One of them died in the Battle of Murfreesboro, but the other survived the war. At the end of the war he found himself largely in debt because of obligations incurred in extensive purchases of plantations and slaves in Louisiana before the war. His property was dissipated by the war, but the debts remained. He declined to take advantage of a Louisiana law excusing payment of obligations incurred in the purchase of slaves, or of bankruptcy law. After briefly serving on a commission established to enforce a state lien on railways, he "labored incessantly at his profession until within a few weeks of his death", at the age of seventy-four. It was said that "he loosened the hold on life, as a giant oak in green old age rushes to its fall".

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Archibald U.S. state supreme court judges admitted to the practice of law by reading law United States Army personnel of the Seminole Wars Members of the Tennessee House of Representatives Justices of the Tennessee Supreme Court 1809 births 1884 deaths People from Maury County, Tennessee 19th-century American legislators 19th-century American judges 19th-century Tennessee politicians