Harvey Washington Walter

Harvey Washington Walter was born in Fairfield, Ohio on May 21, 1819.{{cite web|url=http://www2.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/w/Walter,Harvey_Washington.html | title = Collection Title: Harvey Washington Walter Papers, 1849-1899. |publisher=The Southern Historical Collection at the Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library | website = University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | access-date= September 12, 2015}}

Walter moved to Holly Springs, Mississippi, where he practised the Law. He also served as the President of the Mississippi Central Railroad.{{cite book |last=Higginbotham |first=Sylvia | date=2000 |title=Marvelous Old Mansions: And Other Southern Treasures |url=https://archive.org/details/marvelousoldmans00higg |url-access=registration |location=Winston-Salem, North Carolina |publisher=John F. Blair, Publisher |pages=[https://archive.org/details/marvelousoldmans00higg/page/118 118]–120|isbn=9780895872272 }}

During the Civil War, Colonel Walter served as a Judge Advocate under General Bragg in the Confederate States Army. However, he was staunchly opposed to secession, and he invited Union General Ulysses Grant and his wife, Julia Grant, to stay in his house for the duration of the war.{{cite book |last=Miller |first=Mary Carol |date=2007 |title=Must See Mississippi: 50 Favorite Places |location=Oxford, Mississippi |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |pages=183–184}} When Confederate General Earl Van Dorn liberated Holly Springs, Walter forbid him to enter the house until Julia Grant has gone out. To thank him, the Union Army did not ransack the house. Julia Dent Grant's version of this story, as published in her memoirs, differs slightly. She wrote that she had actually left Holly Springs and was en route to join her husband when the Confederate soldiers took over the town. She goes on to say that Van Dorn's men wanted to take her belongings, but were refused access to the Walter's house, but they did burn her coach and take the horses. Van Dorn's intention was not to liberate the town but to destroy materiel that may have been of benefit to the Union troops and then withdraw.{{cite book|last1=Simon|first1=John Y.|last2=Grant|first2=Julia Dent|title=The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant)|date=1988|publisher=SIU Press|page=107|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tQaZhxwbLB8C&q=holly+springs&pg=PA107|accessdate=7 March 2016|isbn=9780809314430}}

In 1878, Walter turned his mansion into a hospital for patients with the yellow fever. He sent away his wife and youngest children, but his three sons remained to help. All four died of the disease within a week of each other

Walter married Fredonia Brown (1830-1898). They had five sons and five daughters.

File:Walter Place, Holly Springs, Mississippi.jpg

In 1858–1860, he commissioned architect Spires Boling to build Walter Place, a mansion in Holly Springs, Mississippi.{{cite book |last=Kempe |first=Helen Kerr |date=1998 |title=Marshall County: From the Collection of Chesley Thorne Smith |location=Gretna, Louisiana |publisher=Pelican Publishing Company |page=30}}

Walter died of yellow fever in 1878. He was buried at the Hillcrest Cemetery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. His mansion, Walter Place, was inherited by his widow until it was acquired by his son-in-law, Oscar Johnson Sr., the co-founder of the International Shoe Company and husband of daughter Irene, in 1889.

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Category:1819 births

Category:1878 deaths

Category:People from Fairfield, Ohio

Category:People from Holly Springs, Mississippi

Category:Businesspeople from Mississippi

Category:19th-century American railroad executives

Category:Confederate States Army officers

Category:Deaths from yellow fever

Category:19th-century American lawyers