Early Life and Career
Gregg was born in Lawrenceville, Alabama, to Nathan Gregg and Sarah Pearsall Camp. He graduated from LaGrange College (now the University of North Alabama) in 1847, where he was subsequently employed as a professor of mathematics. He later studied law in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
Gregg relocated to Freestone County, Texas, in 1852 and settled in the town of Fairfield, Texas. He was elected as a district judge and served in that position from 1855 until 1860. In 1858, Gregg married Mary Francis Garth from Alabama, daughter of Jesse Winston Garth, a Unionist who was willing to give up his hundreds of slaves if it meant saving the Union.
Gregg was one of the founders of the Freestone County Pioneer, the first newspaper in Freestone County. He used his paper and political clout to call for a secession convention following the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860.
Gregg served as a delegate to the Texas Secession Convention in Austin, in January 1861. The delegation issued the Ordinance of Secession on February 1, 1861. Gregg was one of six members of the convention that were elected to represent Texas in the Provisional Confederate Congress in Montgomery, Alabama, and later in Richmond, Virginia.
Read more about this topic: John Gregg (CSA)
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