22nd Governor of Alabama. He served as the Governor of Alabama from 1870 to 1872, during the Reconstruction Era, following the American Civil War. He is the only governor who was not born in the United States. Being a moderate Democrat in politics, his Unionist viewpoints, at the dawn of the war, did not support Alabama's secession to join the Confederacy. Many Alabamians felt he was a Republican labeled as a Democrat. He opposed the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, but with the election of President Ulysses S. Grant in 1868, he knew the South would have to face the challenges of the Reconstruction Era. In Scotland, he was educated in Presbyterian schools, and attended the University of St. Andrews in Fife. In 1844, he traveled to North Carolina to visit his brother, deciding to stay and study law, and teach school. He relocated to Tuscumbia, Alabama in 1849, and continued teaching until 1852 when he was admitted to the Alabama bar and started a private law practice. His political career began when he was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1853. During the American Civil War, he served as an officer in the Confederate Army in Col. P. D. Roddey's Fourth Alabama Cavalry regiment. He served in the Alabama Senate in 1857, and after the war, in 1865 and 1870. Lindsay was a presidential elector in 1860. By a narrow margin, he was elected as Alabama's 22nd governor on November 8, 1870, and was sworn into office on November 26, 1870. For two weeks, Governor William Hugh Smith refused to leave the governorship with the support of the United States military, but after the Alabama second circuit court issued an order, Lindsay acquired the position in December of 1870. Since the end of the war, Alabama had violence running rampant with lynchings of former slaves and Republican politicians, but with him as a Democratic governor, he oversaw a reduction in violence, especially from the Klu Klux Klan. During his term, the cities of Gadsen and Birmingham were incorporated in 1871. Alabama Polytechnic Institute, which is now Auburn University, opened. His term was plagued by financial scandals mainly related to over purchasing of railroad bonds during Governor Smith's term. There was no easy answer to solve this problem. After a heated debate, the general assembly voted to block the required, yet unbudgeted, money for railroads, which became a disastrous mistake, causing a drop in the Wall Street stock market. This halted the building of railroads as well as schools in Alabama. Since his term was very stressful, he did not seek re-election and returned to his law practice. Two months after leaving office, he had a serious stroke at age 48, becoming paralyzed for the rest of his life. With the Democratic Party failing to have a strong gubernatorial candidate, Republican David P. Lewis became the 23rd Governor of Alabama. In 1854 Lindsay married Sarah Miller Winston, the younger half-sister of the 15th Governor of Alabama, John Winston. With him holding to Winston's political views on certain subjects, his marriage benefited his political ambitions. The couple had nine children, with four of whom surviving into adulthood. His youngest daughter was Maud McKnight Lindsay, an educator, who published 18 children's book. His private grave marker has lines from the Scottish poem about heaven, "Land o' the Leal."