His grandfather James M. Garnett and aunts raised him after his father died in 1824. He received a private education suitable to his class. His uncle was a congressman Robert Garnett Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter. He attended the University of Virginia, where he received his law degree in 1842. Garnett was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1842, and set up practice, as his father had done, in Loretto.[1]
Career
He was a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1850 and 1851 where he opposed expansion of the electorate, fearing internal improvements that would benefit western counties.[2] In 1850, he wrote a pamphlet The Union, Past and Future; how it works and how to save it. By a Citizen of Virginia, which discussed the relationship of slavery to the national government.[3]
In 1856, Garnett was elected as a Democrat from Virginia's 1st Congressional District to the 34th Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Thomas H. Bayly. He was subsequently reelected to both the 35th and 36th Congresses, serving from December 1, 1856, to March 3, 1861, only leaving at the outbreak of the Civil War.
With his sympathies lying with the South, he became a delegate to first the Virginia secession convention and then to the State constitutional convention in 1861. From 1862 to 1864, he was a Virginian member of the First Confederate Congress. During that same time, his uncle Robert Hunter was the CSA Secretary of State and then a CSA Senator.
Personal life
He was married on July 26, 1860, to Mary Picton Stevens (1840–1903), a daughter of Edwin Augustus Stevens. They had two children before his early death:[4]
James Mercer Garnett, who was born July 7, 1861.[4]
Mary Barton Picton Garnett, who was born May 28, 1863.[4]
While attending the Confederate Congress in early 1864, Muscoe caught typhoid fever, and subsequently died at his family's "Elmwood" estate on February 14, 1864, where he was buried in the family cemetery.[5] After his death, his widow married Edward Parke Custis Lewis, a diplomat, who was a great-great nephew of George Washington.
1856; Garnett was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election with 51.58% of the vote, defeating American Robert Saunders.
1857; Garnett was re-elected with 57.08% of the vote, defeating American John Critcher.
