Edwin Godwin Reade (November 13, 1812 – October 18, 1894) was a U.S. congressman from

North Carolina North Carolina () is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 28th largest and List of states and territories of the United ...

between 1855 and 1857. He later served in the Confederate Senate during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

Biography

Edwin Reade was born in

Person County, North Carolina Person County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The population was 39,097 as of the 2020 census. The county seat is Roxboro. Person County is included in the Durham-Chapel Hill Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is a ...

in 1812; a lawyer, he was admitted to the bar in 1835 and practiced in Roxboro. Reade served a single term in the

34th United States Congress The 34th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C., from March 4, 1855, ...

as a member of the American Party (March 4, 1855 – March 3, 1857), and refused to run for re-election in 1856. In 1863, Governor

Zebulon Vance Zebulon Baird Vance (May 13, 1830 – April 14, 1894) was the 37th and 43rd governor of North Carolina, a U.S. Senator from North Carolina, and a Confederate officer during the American Civil War. A prolific writer and noted public speak ...

appointed Reade to the Confederate Senate to fill the seat of George Davis, who had resigned to become the Confederacy's

Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

. Following the Civil War, Reade presided over the

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology * Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...

convention in 1865 in

Raleigh, North Carolina Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Sout ...

. In 1868, he was named as associate justice of the

North Carolina Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of North Carolina is the state of North Carolina's highest appellate court. Until the creation of the North Carolina Court of Appeals in the 1960s, it was the state's only appellate court. The Supreme Court consists ...

, a post he held until 1879. Following his retirement from government, Reade engaged in banking in Raleigh, where he died in 1894. He is buried in Raleigh's Oakwood Cemetery.

External links

*
, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Reade, Edwin 1812 births 1894 deaths People from Person County, North Carolina Know-Nothing members of the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina Confederate States of America senators Justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court People of North Carolina in the American Civil War Burials at Historic Oakwood Cemetery 19th-century American politicians People from Roxboro, North Carolina