Luther Glenn

Who was Luther Glenn?

Luther Judson Glenn was a prominent Georgia lawyer, politician, Confederate officer during the American Civil War, and antebellum Mayor of Atlanta.

He attended the University of Georgia where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society and graduated in 1841. He was married to Mildred Lewis Cobb, a younger sister of Generals Howell and Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb. An attorney, Glenn represented Henry County in the state legislature as a Democrat before arriving in Atlanta in 1851. Six years later, he was elected mayor and served two consecutive one-year terms. He was the first mayor to appoint regular committees in council for the various functions of city governance: Fire, Streets, Finance, and so on.

In March 1861, the Southern states that had seceded from the Union appointed special commissioners to travel to those other slaveholding Southern states that had yet to secede. Glenn served as the Commissioner from Georgia to the Missouri Secession Convention, publicly reading Georgia's Articles of Secession and trying to persuade Missouri politicians to vote to join Georgia in seceding from the Union.