Background
Daniel Norwood Speer (1836-1893) was born into a prominent Georgia planter family; his parents William Alexander Speer (1810-1862)
and Martha Jane Norwood Speer (1816-1888) had moved to Troup County, Ga. from Abbeville, S.C. Speer graduated from Oglethorpe
College in 1858, and opened a law practice with his brother John Andrew Speer (1833-1879) in LaGrange, Ga. On July 5, 1860
he married Aurelia Roberta Moreland (1842-1905), daughter of Dr. John Fletcher Moreland (1817-1878) and Sarah Ann Amoss (182201877).
In September 1861, Speer enlisted in the Confederate army as Captain of the 4th Battalion of Georgia Infantry (Fannin's Greys),
a regiment of the state guards organized by William H. Stiles. The unit was employed on building defenses on Skidaway Island.
In March, 1862, the Confederate forces evacuated the island, and the battalion became Co. B. of the 60th Regiment of Georgia
Infantry; Speer was commissioned Captain of Co. S. On Jan. 10, 1863, he was promoted to Acting Quartermaster of Lawton's Brigade,
and in April received the rank of a major. In the fall of 1863, Speer was assigned to the staff at the headquarters of the
Trans-Mississippi Department. He was paroled on June 4, 1865, at Alexandria, La. After the war, Speer returned to his law
practice in LaGrange. From 1880 to 1884, he served as the State Treasurer; he was one of the original financiers of the Exposition
Cotton Mills Company.
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