REFERENCE: 1315 VA Cou
Major Sherrod was educated at the University of North Carolina, devoted
his attention to cotton farming. He was a member of the Alabama
legislature 1859 - 1860 and in 1861 represented the 5th District of
Alabama in the Charleston Convention, which passed the ordinance of
Secession, which however he did not favor. He served through the was as
Commissary of Patterson's Brigade of Cavalry, C.S.A., with the rank of
Major. In 1869, he was elected to Congress, serving until 1871, and was
the only representative of his party in the 41st Congress who was born in
the South. p. 316, Va Cousins
Major Sherrod writes as follows, of his Congressional record:
"My father lived ahead of his time. He was the originator and builder of
the line of Railroad from Decatur to Tuscumbia around the Muscle Shoals,
predicting at that early day that a Railroad would be built from the
Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean, and that his line of Road would
be a portion of the trunk line, all of which prophecy has been fulfilled.
When I was elected to Congress I concluded I would take up his work where
he left it off, and conceived the idea of connecting the oceans by
railroad over the line built by him, consequently I devoted the whole of
my Congressional career to securing the passage of the Texas and Pacific
R.R. bill, having the entire charge of that bill, the passage of which
has done more to build up the Southern Country than any masure passed by
Congress since the war." pp. 316 and 317, Va Cousins