Henry Stuart Foote (February 28, 1804-May 19, 1880) was a United States Senator from Mississippi from 1847 to 1852 and Governor of Mississippi from 1852 to 1854. He was born in Fauquier County, Virginia. In 1688 his ancestor Richard Foote II settled on Chotank Creek in King George County, Virginia. Richard Foote II is first cousin to Topham Foote whose bust and coat of arms greets visitors to St. John The Baptist, the Windsor Parish Church in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, England, near Windsor Castle.
Henry S. Foote pursued classical studies in 1819, but did not graduate from Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) to his regret. He later studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1823 and commenced practice in Tuscumbia, Alabama in 1825. In Tuscumbia, Foote established a newspaper, frequently loaned books from his personal library, and was one of 21 local trustees who founded in 1830 LaGrange College, now the University of North Alabama. LaGrange was the first college to open its doors in Alabama and gain a charter from the Legislature.
He moved to Mississippi and practiced law in Jackson, Natchez, Vicksburg, and Raymond. He was later elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1847, until January 8, 1852, when he resigned to become Governor after defeating Jefferson Davis in the election of 1851. Foote was elected on an Unionist platform. Because of Foote's distress with rising, anti-Union fervor in Mississippi, he moved to California in 1854 after his term as governor.
On the eve of the Civil War, he returned to Vicksburg. In 1859 he was a member of the Southern convention held at Knoxville. He moved to Tennessee and settled at Nashville, where he was elected to the First and Second Confederate Congresses. As a Confederate Congressman, he mercilessly assailed the Confederate President's war policies and in one debate attacked Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin, displaying virulent anti-Semitism.
Near the end of the War he attempted to cross to the Union lines but was arrested by Confederates. After Lee's surrender, he moved to Washington, D.C., and practiced law. Foote was appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes as superintendent of the United States Mint at New Orleans 1878-1880. He died in Nashville on May 20, 1880 and interred in his wife's Mt. Olivet Cemetery plot in an unmarked grave.
The Henry Stuart Foote Family website is http://www.chotank.com/gindex.html
Preceded by: James Whitfield Governor of Mississippi 1852-1854 Succeeded by: John J. Pettus Governors of Mississippi Holmes • Poindexter • Leake • Brandon • Holmes • Brandon • Scott • Lynch • Runnels • Quitman • Lynch • McNutt • Tucker • Brown • Matthews • Quitman • Guion • J. Whitfield • Foote • Pettus • McRae • McWillie • Pettus • Clark • Sharkey • Humphreys • Ames • Alcorn • Powers • Ames • Stone • Lowry • Stone • McLaurin • Longino • Vardaman • Noel • Brewer • Bilbo • Russell • H. Whitfield • Murphree • Bilbo • Conner • White • Johnson • Murphree • Bailey • Wright • White • Coleman • Barnett • Johnson Jr. • Williams • Waller • Finch • Winter • Allain • Mabus • Fordice • Musgrove • Barbour
