Andrew Baxter Springs letter

Springs was born near Fort Mill, York District, S.C. on October 21, 1819 to John and Mary Springs. In 1860 he was elected from York to the Secession Convention and signed the Ordinance of Secession. Although most of his life was spent on the plantation of his birth, "Springfield," he moved to Charlotte late in life. Springs died on January 27, 1886 while visiting New York City and was buried in Charlotte. During the final days of the Civil War, Confederate president Jefferson Davis spent the night of April 26, 1865 at "Springfield." One of the last meetings of his cabinet took place the next day on the plantation's grounds. Franklin Barlow Sexton (1828-1900), an attorney, slaveholding farmer, and politician, served in the Confederate congress as an elected member from the Fourth Congressional District of Texas. [For additional biographical information about Springs, see Katherine Wooten Springs, The Squires of Springfield (1965). For additional information about Sexton, see Jon L. Wakelyn, Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy (1977) and Richard N. Current, ed., Encyclopedia of the Confederacy. (1993).]