Thomas Hart Ruffin

Thomas Hart Ruffin was a United States [House of Representatives|Congressional Representative] from North Carolina; born in Louisburg, North Carolina, September 9, 1820; attended the common schools; graduated from the University of [North Carolina at Chapel Hill|University of North Carolina Law School], Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1841; lawyer, private practice; circuit attorney of the seventh judicial district of the state of Missouri 1844–1848; elected as a Democrat to the Thirty-third and to the three succeeding Congresses ; delegate to the Confederate Provisional Congress at Richmond, Va., in July 1861; during the American Civil War served in the Confederate Army as colonel of the 1st North Carolina Cavalry Regiment, Confederate States of America; mortally wounded on October 14, 1863, at Auburn, Virginia; and died as a prisoner of war on October 17, 1863, in Grace Church Hospital, Alexandria, Virginia; interment in the private cemetery on the Ruffin homestead, near Louisburg, N.C.
Ruffin owned a large plantation with 51 slaves.