John Pegram (November 16, 1773April 8, 1831) was a Virginia planter, soldier and politician who served in the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

, both houses of the

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, and the first elected legislative assembly in the New World. It was established on July 30, ...

and a major general during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

Early and family life

John Pegram was the son of Edward Pegram and Ann Lyle. Born at the "Bonneville"

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

Dinwiddie County Dinwiddie County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 27,947. Its county seat is Dinwiddie. Dinwiddie County is part of the Richmond, VA Metropolitan Statistical Area. History The ...

in the

Colony of Virginia The Colony of Virginia was a British Empire, British colonial settlement in North America from 1606 to 1776. The first effort to create an English settlement in the area was chartered in 1584 and established in 1585; the resulting Roanoke Colo ...

, Pegram received a private education suitable to his class. He married Martha Ward Gregory, and they had several children. Decades after his death, three of their grandsons became

Confederate A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

officers, as noted below.

Career

As a young adult, Pegram held various local offices and won his first election in 1797, becoming one of Dinwiddie County's (part-time) representatives in the

Virginia House of Delegates The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two houses of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbe ...

. He also won re-election and served from 1797 to 1801, then won election to the

Virginia Senate The Senate of Virginia is the upper house of the Virginia General Assembly. The Senate is composed of 40 senators representing an equal number of single-member constituent districts. The Senate is presided over by the lieutenant governor of Virg ...

, and served one term from 1804 until 1808, before again winning election during the

, and serving from 1813–15. In 1802, Col. Pegram replaced revolutionary war veteran John Crawford as commander of Virginia's 39th Militia regiment, composed of white male volunteers from Petersburg who were required to attend yearly (and sometimes monthly or even more often); beginning in 1808 his counterpart in the 83rd Regiment (composed of white men from Dinwiddie County) was Lt.Col. Braddock Goodwyn. Pegram became the major general of the Virginia

militia A militia ( ) is a military or paramilitary force that comprises civilian members, as opposed to a professional standing army of regular, full-time military personnel. Militias may be raised in times of need to support regular troops or se ...

in the War of 1812 and held field command of all state forces. Following the war, Pegram accepted appointment as

United States marshal The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The Marshals Service serves as the enforcement and security arm of the United States federal judi ...

for the eastern district of Virginia, April 23, 1821. Pegram won a special election as a

Democratic-Republican The Democratic-Republican Party (also referred to by historians as the Republican Party or the Jeffersonian Republican Party), was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s. It championed l ...

to the

Fifteenth Congress The 15th 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 the Old Brick Capitol in Washingto ...

to fill the vacancy caused by the death of

United States Representative The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

Peterson Goodwyn Peterson Goodwyn (1745February 21, 1818) was an American planter, lawyer, soldier and politician from Virginia. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1803 until his death in 1818. Early life Born at his father's plantatio ...

. He served from April 21, 1818 – March 3, 1819, but did not seek reelection.

Death and legacy

He died at his home in Dinwiddie County and was buried on the family plantation.The official Congressional biography incorrectly states that Pegram was killed in a boat fire on the Ohio River and his body never recovered. That victim, however, was his son, James West Pegram (see Brown). J. W. Pegram's memorial stone in Hollywood Cemetery also refers to the boat fire as the cause of his death. Three of his grandsons became prominent officers in the

Army of Northern Virginia The Army of Northern Virginia was a field army of the Confederate States Army in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. It was also the primary command structure of the Department of Northern Virginia. It was most often arrayed agains ...

during the

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

— John Pegram, William Ransom Johnson Pegram and Richard Gregory Pegram, Jr.

References

* Brown, John Howard, ''The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans''. Boston: The Biographical Society, 1904.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pegram, John 1773 births 1831 deaths American militia generals Law enforcement officials from Virginia United States Marshals Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Virginia Members of the Virginia House of Delegates People from Dinwiddie County, Virginia American militiamen in the War of 1812 Virginia state senators 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives 19th-century members of the Virginia General Assembly