the Confederate States agreed that the Virginia forces would be under the overall direction of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, pending completion of the process of Virginia joining the Confederate States. Colonel John Brown Baldwin defeated Letcher in May 1863 for a seat in the Second Confederate Congress. In 1864, his home in Lexington was burned by Union troops during General David Hunter's raid. Postwar After the Civil War, Letcher resumed the practice of law in Lexington. He was elected as a member of the House of Delegates in the Virginia General Assembly 1875–1877. He was a member of the Board of Visitors of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) 1866–1880 and served as president of the Board for ten years. He died on January 26, 1884, at the age of 70, and was interred in the Presbyterian Cemetery (now Oak Grove Cemetery) at Lexington, Virginia. Electoral history 1859 – Letcher was elected Governor of Virginia, defeating American William Leftwich Goggin. Family Letcher's son, John Davidson Letcher, was a professor at Oregon State University, serving as acting president from January 1892 to June 1892. His son Greenlee D. Letcher served two terms in the Virginia House of Delegates. Governor Letcher had a daughter, Lizzie, who married James Harrison, a language professor at Washington and Lee and later head of the Romance and Teutonic Language Department at the University of Virginia after 1895. References Books Boney, F.N. (1966) John Letcher of Virginia; The Story of Virginia’s Civil War Governor. University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1966. Long, E. B. The Civil War Day by Day: An Almanac, 1861–1865. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971. Websites John Letcher in Union or Secession: Virginians Decide at the Library of Virginia John Letcher in Encyclopedia Virginia US Congressional Biographies Online website Info Please article External links A Guide to the Executive Papers of Governor John Letcher, 1859–1863 at The Library of Virginia 1813 births 1884 deaths People from Lexington, Virginia Democratic Party governors of Virginia People of Virginia in the American Civil War Virginia lawyers Randolph–Macon College alumni Washington and Lee University alumni Journalists from Virginia Democratic Party members of the Virginia House of Delegates Confederate States of America state governors Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Virginia 19th-century American newspaper editors American male journalists 19th-century American politicians Southern Historical Society