FLOYD, John Buchanan, American states man: b. Smithfield, Montgomery County, Va., 1 June 1807; d. near Abingdon, Va., 26 Aug. 1863. He was educated at Columbia College. South Carolina, graduating in 1829; studied law and settled in southwest Virginia; was a member of the Virginia legislature several terms and was governor of the State 1850-53, his term being notable for his advocacy of the policy of public improvements. In 1857 he was appointed Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President Buchanan, and remained in it until 29 Dec. 1860, when he resigned because he considered the action of Major Anderson in occupying Fort Sumter a breach of faith to South Carolina. He went to Abingdon, Va. On 29 Jan. 1861 the grand jury of the District of Columbia indicted him as privy to a defal cation in the Department of the Interior. He returned to Washington, gave bail and de manded a trial, and the government thereupon, on 7 March 1861, entered a nolle prosequi. After his departure he was alsd accused of having transferred arms from Northern to Southern arsenals in order to arm, the South for the Civil War. This charge was investi
gated by a Congressional committee, which, on 18 Feb. 1861, made a report showing, it to be groundless, the arms transferred having been condemned arms, removed in order to make room in the Northern arsenals for modern ones. In the summer of 1861 he was appointed a brigadier-general in the Confederate army and raised a brigade which served in West Virginia until ordered to join the army of Gen. A. S. Johnston in the West. He was sent to Fort Donelson, arriving there after fighting had be gun. When surrender was discussed, he trans ferred the command to Buckner and extricated his brigade; in consequence of which he was removed from command by Jefferson Davis. The State of Virginia thereupon appointed.him a major-general in its service. Consult Davis, 'Rise and Fall of the Confederate Govern ment' (1::1); Nicolay and Hay, 'Life of Lin coln' (1890).