Colquitt, Alfred Holt

Colquitt reentered politics in 1859, when he was elected to the Georgia legislature. A strong secessionist, he served as a presidential elector for the ticket of John C. Breckinridge and Joseph Lane in the 1860 election, representing the southern wing of the Democratic party that demanded an unequivocal endorsement of slavery. The following year Colquitt was elected as a delegate to the Georgia secession convention, which voted to break from the Union in January 1861. When war was declared in April, he enlisted in the Confederate army as a captain of infantry and rose quickly in the ranks to major general. His greatest military success came in 1864 when he commanded infantry at the battle of Olustee, Florida, a humiliating though strategically insignificant defeat for the larger and better-equipped Union army.

After the Civil War Colquitt returned to his Baker County plantation, one of the largest in postbellum Georgia, and resumed his law practice. He was also an industrial promoter of railroads and other industries and invested in the Georgia Pacific Syndicate. Again active in the Georgia Democratic party, he stridently opposed congressional Reconstruction policies. In 1870 he served as president of the Democratic State Convention and later that year was elected president of the state agricultural society.