Randall Lee Gibson (September 10, 1832 – December 15, 1892) was an attorney and politician, elected as a member of the House of Representatives and U.S. Senator from Louisiana. He served as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army. Later he was a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and a president of the board of administrators of Tulane University. Early life Gibson was born in 1832 at "Spring Hill", Versailles, Kentucky, the son of Tobias Gibson, a planter and slaveholder. His mother was from a slaveholding family in Lexington, Kentucky. His paternal great-grandfather was Gideon Gibson Jr., who was likely born in the colony of South Carolina in 1731. His great-great-grandfather, Gideon Gibson, was a free man of color who was married to a white woman, and had owned land and a few slaves in Virginia (likely where he was born) and North Carolina, before migrating with other settlers to South Carolina in the 1730s. The government was worried that he might provoke a slave revolt and the colonial governor had an interview with him. Learning about his life, the governor declared him a free man with all privileges, and granted him land. Gibson's father moved his family to Louisiana when Randall was a child, where the youth was educated in local academies. He went to college in the North, graduating from Yale University in 1853, where he was a member of the Skull and Bones society. He returned to Louisiana to study for his bachelor of laws (LL.B) from the University of Louisiana Law School, later Tulane University. Civil War Soon after the Louisiana's secession from the Union, Gibson became an aide to Gov. Thomas O. Moore. On May 8, 1861, he left the capital to join the 1st Louisiana Artillery as a captain. On August 13, 1861, he was commissioned as colonel of the 13th Louisiana Infantry. Gibson fought at the Battle of Shiloh and subsequent actions. With the Army of the Mississippi, he took part in the 1862 Kentucky Campaign and the Battle of Chickamauga. After being promoted to brigadier general (special) on January 11, 1864, he fought in the Atlanta Campaign and the Franklin-Nashville Campaign; he next was assigned to the defense of Mobile, Alabama. He inspired his troops to hold Spanish Fort, which was under siege, until the last moment, after which they escaped at night on April 8, 1865. Gibson was captured at