William Wirt

Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘William Wirt’

William Wirt (1772-1834) was a Virginian lawyer who rose to be US Attorney General, serving for almost twelve years under Presidents James Monroe and John Quincy Adams. His career began when he was given the post of Clerk of the Virginia House of Delegates, a post he held for three years. In 1807, President James Madison chose him to prosecute Aaron Burr, charged with treason, and his eloquence made him name. In 1808 he was elected a member of the House, and in 1816 Wirt was appointed US Attorney for the District of Virginia. The following year, President Monroe named him 9th United States Attorney General, a post he held until 1829.

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Blind Guide by William Wirt

William Wirt recalls an overpowering sermon from a blind man in a little wooden chapel.

William Wirt, a rising Virginian lawyer, published The Letters of a British Spy in 1803. He took the character of a British tourist (not a secret agent) in the US, and remarked on the habits of the Americans twenty years after the Revolutionary War. This famous passage brings to startling life a blind Christian minister in a roadside chapel in Orange County, as he preaches the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

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