Richard Griffith is one of those men who seems to stand just offstage in Mississippi history.

He was never as famous as his contemporaries Jefferson Davis or Governor/Congressman John Quitman, but he moved in their world. He was a Mexican War veteran, the Democratic state treasurer, the Southern District U.S. Marshal, and finally a Confederate brigadier general who died in battle in 1862. And if that were the whole story, he would still be worth remembering.