Alfred B. Greenwood

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Alfred Burton Greenwood (July 11, 1811 – October 4, 1889) was an American lawyer, judge, and politician from Arkansas. He served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1853–1859) for Arkansas’s 1st district and chaired the House Committee on Indian Affairs in his last term. He was the 11th Commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1859 to 1861 under President James Buchanan. Earlier, he served in the Arkansas General Assembly (1842–1846), as prosecuting attorney (1845–1851), and as circuit judge (1851–1853). He owned slaves.

When Arkansas seceded, Greenwood joined the Confederate Congress and served from 1862 to 1865. During the war, Jefferson Davis asked him to recruit Cherokee and Choctaw soldiers for the Confederacy, and in 1864 Greenwood was appointed tax collector for Arkansas.

Greenwood was born in Franklin County, Georgia, and studied at the University of Georgia, where he earned his-law degree and was admitted to the bar in 1832. He moved to Bentonville, Arkansas, where he became the town’s first attorney. He married Sarah A. Hilburn in 1833; they had 12 children. In 1837 he served as a quartermaster during the Cherokee removal (the Trail of Tears), leading about 1,000 Native Americans to Oklahoma; he resigned in 1838 and moved his family to Bentonville. After the Civil War he practiced law in Cassville, Missouri, and later returned to Arkansas in 1879. He died in Bentonville in 1889 and is buried in Bentonville Cemetery. Greenwood, Arkansas, and Greenwood County, Kansas, are named after him.