Richard Spaight Donnell

[1] A scion of a pioneering and aristocratic family, he was raised on his father's plantation and town homes and was taught by tutors before attending the elite New Bern Academy.

He later joined the North Carolina militia and raised a force for the state as was the practice and socially required responsibility of gentlemen of his age.

After the war he resumed the practice of law in Washington, North Carolina and became involved in state politics until the controversies of abolition and the election of 1860.

When that proposal was shot down by the Republican Party and Abolitionists, and following orders of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln which called up the militia to occupy the southern states, he voted in support of secession.

The Union's total war campaign against fellow Americans was unexpected and his family's finances and wealth which had developed when the state was a mere colonial frontier outpost suffered heavily.