Biographies - D through F

DALTON, Tristram, a Senator from Massachusetts; born in Newburyport, Mass., May 28, 1738; attended Dummer Academy, Byfield, Mass., and was graduated from Harvard College in 1755; studied law; was admitted to the bar but did not practice; engaged in mercantile pursuits; delegate from Massachusetts to the convention of committees of New England Provinces which met in Providence, R.I., December 25, 1776; member, State house of representatives 1782-1785, and served as speaker in 1784; elected to the Continental Congress in 1783 and 1784, but did not attend; member, State senate 1785-1788; elected to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1789, to March 3, 1791; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1790; surveyor of the port of Boston from November 1814 until his death in Boston, Mass., May 30, 1817; interment in the churchyard of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Newburyport, Essex County, Mass.

EDWARDS, Weldon Nathaniel, a Representative from North Carolina; born in Gaston, Northampton County, N.C., January 25, 1788; attended Warrenton Academy; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1810 and commenced practice in Warrenton, N.C.; member of the State house of representatives in 1814 and 1815; elected as a Republican to the Fourteenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Nathaniel Macon; reelected to the Fifteenth and to the four succeeding Congresses and served from February 7, 1816, to March 3, 1827; chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Treasury (Eighteenth Congress), Committee on Public Expenditures (Nineteenth Congress); declined to be a candidate for reelection in 1826; returned to his plantation; member of the State senate 1833-1844; member of the State constitutional convention in 1835; again elected to the State senate in 1850 and chosen its president; president of the State secession convention in 1861; died in Warren County, N.C., December 18, 1873; interment in a private cemetery at his home, "Poplar Mount," about twelve miles from Warrenton, Warren County, N.C. [See Table of ]

FLOYD, John, a Representative from Virginia; born at Floyds Station, near the present city of Louisville, Jefferson County, Ky. (then a part of Virginia), April 24, 1783; pursued an academic course; attended Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., and was graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia in 1806; settled in Lexington, Va., the same year, and soon thereafter moved to Christiansburg, Montgomery County, Va., where he practiced his profession; justice of the peace in 1807; major of Virginia State Militia 1807-1812; served as surgeon with rank of major in the War of 1812; subsequently became brigadier general of militia; member of the State house of delegates in 1814 and 1815; elected as a Republican to the Fifteenth Congress and reelected to the five succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1817-March 3, 1829); was not a candidate for renomination in 1828; Governor of Virginia 1830-1834; received the electoral vote of South Carolina for President in 1833; died near Sweetsprings, Monroe County, Va. (now West Virginia), August 17, 1837; interment in an unmarked grave in the cemetery at Sweetsprings.

FLOYD, John Buchanan (1806-1863), American politician and Confederate army officer, born in Smithfield, Virginia, and educated at South Carolina College (now University of South Carolina). He was elected to the Virginia state assembly in 1847 and served as governor of Virginia from 1849 to 1852. For aid in the election of James Buchanan as president of the U.S., Floyd was appointed secretary of war in 1857. He advocated states' rights, but opposed secession. The secession of South Carolina on December 20, 1860, the occupancy of Fort Sumter on December 26, and Buchanan's refusal to order its evacuation turned Floyd into a strong secessionist, and he resigned on December 29. Floyd was persecuted following his withdrawal. Buchanan accused him of misusing $870,000 of government funds, but the government could not sustain the charge. He was also accused of having strengthened the South by transferring arms from northern arsenals, a charge quashed by a congressional committee.

Appointed a brigadier general in the Confederate army in 1861, Floyd was ordered to command Fort Donelson in Tennessee. He arrived there after General Ulysses S. Grant had brought it under siege. Penned within their own lines and outnumbered almost two to one, Floyd and his associates, generals Gideon Pillow and Simon Buckner, were unable to agree on how to defend the fort. Floyd and Pillow, having successively relinquished command, escaped with 1200 men by steamer on the Cumberland River. (Buckner later surrendered the fort.) Confederate president Jefferson Davis stripped Floyd of command for deserting his post, but Floyd was subsequently appointed a major general by the Virginia Assembly.