setting up his law practice. Their children included sons Alfred Holt Colquitt and Peyton H. Colquitt (1831-1863). Following the death of his first wife, Colquitt married widow Alphea B. (Todd) Fauntleroy in 1841. She died that year, and he married Harriet W. Ross the following year, in 1842. National office In 1842 the Georgia state legislature elected Colquitt as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate; he served from March 4, 1843, until his resignation in February 1848. While in the Twenty-ninth Congress, Colquitt was chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia and the Committee on Patents and Patent Office. He supported the Polk administration in the controversy relative to the Oregon Territory, and was a prominent opponent of the Wilmot Proviso throughout the Mexican–American War. Later years Colquitt retired from national politics in 1848 to resume his law practice and preaching. He was a member of the Nashville Convention in 1850, arguing for secession if slavery was restricted in any of the new territories then being added to the country. Colquitt died in 1855 during a trip from Columbus to Macon, Georgia. He was buried in Linwood Cemetery in Columbus, Georgia, where he had been residing. Legacy and honors Colquitt County, Georgia is named in memory of Walter T. Colquitt, as was the town of Colquitt, Georgia. His son, Alfred Holt Colquitt (1824-1894), son of his first wife Nancy (Holt Colquitt, also became a politician, being elected as a U.S. Representative and Senator from Georgia. He served as a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. His second son, Peyton H. Colquitt (1831-1863), also served as a Confederate officer; the colonel was mortally wounded in the Battle of Chickamauga and died two days later. References 1799 births 1855 deaths People from Halifax County, Virginia People from Carroll County, Georgia People from Walton County, Georgia Methodists from Georgia (U.S. state) Georgia (U.S. state) Whigs Colquitt, Walter Terry Georgia (U.S. state) state court judges Princeton University alumni Democratic Party United States senators from Georgia (U.S. state) Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives 19th-century American politicians Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Georgia (U.S. state) People from Hancock County, Georgia American slave owners 19th-century American judges United States senators who owned slaves