Part 2 Chapter 7 Summary

Caro introduces Richard Brevard Russell, Jr., as a barefoot boy, playing soldier in rural Georgia. He is participating not in the contemporary Russo-Japanese war, but in one that was fought forty years earlier: the Battle of Gettysburg, which sealed the fate of the South's "Lost Cause." The Russells and Brevards had owned plantations in Georgia since colonial times, living an aristocratic life that war and cruel Reconstruction abruptly ended. Richard Russell, Sr., had done his best to restore his family's name and fortune, but succeeded only with the former. After gaining a reputation as a lawyer, he entered politics and won a seat in the state House of Representatives, where he championed higher education. He left the legislature to serve as Solicitor General and won a series of elections to court assignments, finally the state Supreme Court, over which he presided...