Stephen Fowler Hale
Stephen Fowler Hale (1816-1862) was a lawyer, Alabama state legislator, and representative to the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy who served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War. He later was a staunch secessionist who traveled to his native Kentucky to convince that state to join the burgeoning Confederacy and would join the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He died from wounds suffered in the Battle of Gaines’ Mill on June 27, 1862. Hale County was named in his honor when it was established in 1867.
Hale was born in Crittenden County, Kentucky, on January 31, 1816, to William Hale and Elizabeth Manahan Hale. Both his mother and father were originally from South Carolina. His father worked as a Union Baptist Minister. The Hale family had originally came from England to Virginia prior to the Revolutionary War. Hale received a private education growing up and later attended Cumberland University. After graduating, Hale moved to Alabama in 1837 and taught school in Greene County. He later returned to school and, in 1839, graduated from law school at Transylvania University in Kentucky.
Returning to Alabama, Hale was admitted to the Alabama State Bar and began working as a lawyer in Eutaw, Greene County. Hale also became involved in politics and in 1843 won election to the Alabama House of Representatives. During this time, Hale met native Alabamian Mary Kirksey. The two married on June 12, 1844, in Eutaw. The couple would have at least five children. When the United States declared war on Mexico in 1846, Hale enlisted in the Army and was elected lieutenant of a company of Alabamians.
After his service in the Mexican-American War, Hale returned to Eutaw and continued his law practice. He once again tried his hand at politics; this time, however, he ran in 1853 for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for Alabama’s Fourth Congressional District, which then consisted of Fayette, Greene, Pickens, Sumter, and Tuscaloosa Counties. Although he secured the nomination for the Union Whig party, he ultimately lost to the incumbent, former Whig turned Democrat William Russell Smith. Despite the defeat, Hale continued to be active in state politics and served two consecutive terms, again in the Alabama House of Representatives, from 1857-61. Hale also was an active and prominent member of the Freemasons in Alabama, at one point rising to the rank of Grand Master of the Great Lodge of Freemasons. During this time, Hale amassed a significant amount of wealth. In 1850, Hale had held real estate holdings valued at $3,500. By 1860, that real estate value had more than doubled to $8,000, and Hale also had a personal estate valued at $47,000, including 12 enslaved individuals.
As the United States teetered on the brink of war after the election of Abraham Lincoln and the secession of multiple southern states, Hale allied himself to the Confederate cause. His support of secession and the Confederacy was made explicitly clear in a December 27, 1860, letter written to the governor of Kentucky in which Hale attempted to persuade that state to join the other seceding states. In the letter, Hale explains how he saw northern support for the election of Lincoln as a direct threat to the institution of slavery and the southern way of life, including white supremacy. As part of an effort by Deep South states to convince borders states to secede, Alabama governor Andrew B. Moore commissioned Hale to travel to Kentucky in late December to make an additional argument for secession. (Moore also commissioned others with similar missions, including congressman Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry, who went to Maryland.) Alabama seceded from the United States on January 11, 1861, but Kentucky did not. Hale’s devotion to the Confederate cause led to his election as a representative to the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy in Montgomery, Montgomery County. Ultimately, Hale decided against serving in the Provisional Congress and instead volunteered for the Confederate Army.
After his enlistment, Hale was chosen and appointed as lieutenant colonel of the Eleventh Alabama Infantry Regiment. His regiment was assigned to Gen. Cadmus Wilcox’s Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia. In the summer of 1862, Hale and the Eleventh Alabama fought in the June 25–July 1 Seven Days Battle outside of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. (A previous commander of the Eleventh was former Alabama Fourth District congressman Sydenham Moore. He was a close friend of Hale from their time in the Mexican-American War and in Alabama politics. He was wounded in the Battle of Seven Pines just weeks earlier and later died.) During one of the battle’s separate actions, the June 27 Battle of Gaines’ Mill, Hale was wounded and despite attempts to save his life, he died on July 18, 1862. The series of battles comprising the Seven Days are notable for Robert E. Lee taking over command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and beating back the U.S. Army’s attempt to take Richmond under Gen. George B. McClellan.
Eventually Hale’s remains were moved back to Eutaw, where he was buried at the Mesopotamia Cemetery. Hale County was created by the Alabama State Legislature on January 30, 1867, from parts of Greene, Marengo, Perry, and Tuscaloosa Counties.
