Fitzpatrick, Benjamin

Fitzpatrick, Benjamin,

1802–69, governor of Alabama (1841–45), b. Greene co., Ga. As a youth, he moved to Alabama (then still part of Mississippi Territory), where after two terms as governor, he served in the U.S. Senate (1848–49, 1853–61). A conservative, Fitzpatrick opposed secession but later supported the Confederacy. He was prominent in the early days of the Reconstruction period in Alabama and presided over the constitutional convention of 1865, but was soon afterward disfranchised.