John M. Richardson

 

 

 

 

The life of Col. Richardson has been a very busy one, and consequently one of intellectual advancement. He is one of a line of a distinguished family who has been conspicuous in private and public life since the American War of Independence. His paternal grandfather, Richardson, was a Captain in the Continental Line during the Revolutionary War; and his paternal grandfather, Buford, belonged to Marion's Partisan Corps, during the same period. He is of English and Huguenot-French blood. He was born in South Carolina, March 13th, 1831, and is the youngest of fifteen children. Several of his family have occupied high official positions; his uncle, J. S. Richardson, was for a long time on the bench of South Carolina. One of his brothers, James S. G. Richardson, was, at one time, State Reporter.

Col. Richardson is said to be a polished scholar, having graduated from South Carolina Military Academy, the University of Virginia, and Harvard University. He was graduated from the latter University, taking the degree of Bachelor of Science, July 19, 1854. Soon after his graduation from Harvard, he went to Georgia, and began teaching. He married there, June 14th, 1855. In 1860, he was elected Professor in Hillsboro Military Academy, Hillsboro, South Carolina. The war coming on, he resigned his place in the Academy and joined the Confederate service, July 3d, 1861, and participated in the first battle of Manassas. In 1862, from exposure to rain and cold, he was compelled to leave the army, having been attacked with rheumatism. He did not remain idle, but took a position in the Georgia Military Institute, at Marietta. In 1863, he was elected Professor of Mathematics in the University of Alabama, but declined, and accepted an appointment on the general staff of the Confederate Army, and returned to battle in the latter part of 1863. In the battle of Winchester, September 19th, 1864, he lost a leg. He returned to Georgia and began teaching, and taught in that State until 1876, when he came to Texas, and located in Sulphur Springs. He taught there and at Leesburg till January, 1885, when he moved to Pittsburg, where he still resides.

He has writter a great deal of a miscellaneous nature. What he has written is marked with the spirit of conservatism. He makes no claims to poetic fame, but his quiet, unobtrusive work deserves recognition.