Early Life and Career
Starke was born in Brunswick County, Virginia. His older brother William Edwin Starke also became a general in the Confederate army. Prior to the Civil War, the brothers worked in the family's stagecoach business that operated between Lawrenceville and Petersburg, Virginia. In early 1840, Peter Starke moved to the South, settling in Bolivar County, Mississippi, where he became active in local politics.
In 1846, while his brother was in the United States Army during the Mexican War, Starke run for a seat in the United States Congress as a member of the Whig Party to replace Jefferson Davis (who had resigned to lead a Mississippi regiment). However, Starke was defeated in the general election by Democrat Henry T. Ellett. Four years later, he was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives. In 1856, he was elected to the Mississippi State Senate.
Read more about this topic: Peter Burwell Starke
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