Absolom M. West

Absolom Madden West (1818 – September 30, 1894) was an American planter, Confederate militia general, state politician, railroad president and labor organizer. Born in Alabama, he became a plantation owner in Holmes County, Mississippi, and president of the Mississippi Central Railroad. He served in the American Civil War. After the war, he served in the Mississippi State Senate and ran for Vice President of the United States, unsuccessfully.

Early life Absolom Madden West was born in 1818 in Alabama. His father, Anderson West, was a county sheriff. He attended private schools for a few years and left school at the age of 14.

Although initially an opponent of secession, when the American Civil War broke out, West became a brigadier general in the Mississippi Militia. He raised a regiment, and later assumed various administrative offices for the state. Sometimes simultaneously, he served as quartermaster-general, paymaster-general, and commissary-general of the Mississippi State Troops. At the end of the war, West was the only officer of the state to make a final accounting. In 1864, West became president of the Mississippi Central Railroad. The railroad was sold to the Illinois Central in 1875. In the years that followed, West established a branch of the National Labor Union, and served as a Democratic elector for president in the election of 1876.

Re-elected to the State Senate, West soon became disenchanted with the Democrats, and joined the Greenback Party. For that party and for the Anti-Monopoly Party, West was a candidate for vice president on the ticket of Benjamin Butler in 1884. He died on September 30, 1894, in Holly Springs.