Author Description

R.L.Y. "Lud" Peyton's journey, from obscurity to the national stage to oblivion, is as unlikely as it is incredible. Born into the cavalier Virginia gentry, Lud's family migrated west on the new National Road, settling in Oxford, Ohio. He graduated, in 1842, from Miami University, the "Yale of the West.". Adding a University of Virginia law degree, in 1844 he settled in Harrisonville, Mo, a 20 year old bachelor. Peyton practiced frontier law in western Missouri's raucous Fourteenth Judicial District. For ten years Lud, a student of Shakespeare, a loveable "eccentric," endeared himself to his friends and community, living a reclusive life. Suddenly in 1854, inflamed by the Kansas - Nebraska Act, Lud exploded onto Missouri's political stage. An impassioned Southern fire-eater, propelled by oratorical brilliance, Peyton rose to prominence in Missouri's Senate. He joined other angry young men, pushing Missouri into the Confederacy. When Civil War erupted Lud commanded a regiment of Missouri State Guard Cavalry. As a Senator, Peyton represented Missouri in the Confederate Congress. Tied to Jefferson Davis by a sister's marriage, Lud became a member of Davis's family. After the Battle of Vicksburg, malaria took him in 1863. Peyton's journey is uniquely American, his life narrating Missouri's, and the country's ante-bellum story.