He was the elder brother of General Robert Ransom, a cousin to fellow Confederate officer Wharton J.

Green, who served as a U. S. Congressman after the Civil War, and a cousin to physician and aviation pioneer William Whitney Christmas.

Matt Ransom graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1847, where he was a member of the Philanthropic Society.

In 1872, he was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy in the term commencing March 4, 1871.

[3] On January 19, 1853, Ransom married Martha Anne "Pattie" Exum of Northampton County, North Carolina.