John B. Floyd

John Buchanan Floyd (June 1, 1806 – August 26, 1863) was the 31st Governor of Virginia, U.S. Secretary of War, and the Confederate general in the American Civil War who lost the crucial Battle of Fort Donelson. Early family life John Buchanan Floyd was born on June 1, 1806, on the Smithfield plantation near Blacksburg, Virginia. He was the eldest son of the former Laetitia Preston and her husband, Governor John Floyd (1783–1837). His brother, Benjamin Rush Floyd (1812-1860), served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly but failed to win the election to the U.S. Congress. His sister Nicketti (1819-1908) married U.S. Senator John Warfield Johnston; his sisters Letitia Preston Floyd Lewis (1814-1886) and Eliza Lavallette Floyd Holmes (1816-1887) also survived their brothers. The elder Floyd served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1817 to 1829 and as governor of Virginia from 1830 to 1834. Young Floyd, who was of English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish heritage, graduated from South Carolina College in 1826 (by some accounts 1829), where he was a member of the Euphradian Society. He married his cousin, Sarah (Sally) Buchanan Preston (1802-1879), daughter of Francis Preston, on June 1, 1830. They had no children. Some claimed Floyd had a daughter, Josephine, who married Robert James Harlan in 1852. Kentucky politician James Harlan enslaved Harlan, who may have been James' son. In the 1850s, Robert Harlan lived free in Cincinnati, Ohio.