William Sugars McLemore (1830–1908) was a circuit judge for Tennessee and a colonel in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

He was reared on the farm and received his education in the common schools of the neighborhood in which he lived.

[2] At seventeen years of age McLemore entered Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky.

[3] In 1861 he enlisted in Company F, 4th Tennessee Cavalry, Confederate States Army, and was promoted to first lieutenant on October 30 1861, captain at an unknown date, major in March 1863, and colonel on February 23, 1864.

McLemore and his wife Anna had five children: Annie L., Bethenia, Albert S., William W. and Lizzie M. Before the Civil War, he was a Whig.

Most whites were members of the Democratic Party and regained political control of state legislatures and offices in the 1870s and 1880s.