Decimus et Ultimus Barziza

Decimus et Ultimus Barziza (also known as D.U. Barziza,[1] Decimus Barziza,[2] and Des Barziza[3] ) (September 4, 1838 in Williamsburg, Virginia – January 30, 1882 in Houston, Texas) was an American businessman, lawyer, and politician, who served two terms in the Texas Legislature

Decimus et Ultimus Barziza, in the 1870s

Early life

Barziza was born in Virginia in 1838. His father, Phillip Ignatius Barziza (originally Filippo Ignazio Barziza), was a viscount who had emigrated from Venice in 1820 and been forced to cede his title of nobility and become an American citizen in order to legally qualify for a bequest;[3] he subsequently married a French-Canadian woman, with whom he had ten children.[4] The Barzizas named their tenth child "Decimus et Ultimus", Latin for "tenth and last".[5]

Barziza attended the College of William and Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg from 1854-1857. He then moved to Texas and later in 1857 enrolled in the law school at Baylor University. He graduated in 1859 and established his law practice in Owensville.[6]

In 1861, the American Civil War began, and Barziza enlisted in the Confederate Army (4th Texas Infantry), where he served under Louis Wigfall and John Bell Hood.[7] He was twice injured in combat, and fought in the Battle of Gettysburg, where he was captured at Little Round Top.[6]

After spending a year in hospital as a prisoner of war, he escaped by leaping out the window of a moving prisoner-transport train in the middle of the night, and walking to Upper Canada, where Confederate sympathizers relayed him to Nova Scotia, and then Bermuda; there, a blockade runner returned him to North Carolina.[3] From North Carolina, he was able to return to Texas, where he wrote his memoirs of captivity and of life as a fugitive, titled The Adventures of a Prisoner of War, and Life and Scenes in Federal Prisons: Johnson's Island, Fort Delaware, and Point Lookout, by an Escaped Prisoner of Hood's Texas Brigade.

Political career

Barziza represented Harris County during the Fourteenth Texas Legislature (1874–1875) and the first session of the Fifteenth Texas Legislature (1876).[2]

During the fourteenth legislature, he played a key role in the controversial transition of the Governorship from Edmund J. Davis to Richard Coke.[4]

During the fifteenth legislature he ran for Speaker of the House but lost by two votes.[6] At the end of the session, Barziza became embroiled in a procedural dispute regarding the Texas and Pacific Railway: in an effort to prevent a vote, he and 33 other representatives did not return from recess on July 31, 1876, so that there would not be a quorum.[4] In response, the speaker ordered that the absentee representatives be arrested and forcibly brought back to the legislature.[4] On August 2, 1876, Barziza resigned.[2]

Legacy

Barziza Street, in the Houston neighborhood of Eastwood, is named for him.[4]

In 1964, the University of Texas Press re-published his memoirs.[3]

References
  1. Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Texas (first Session of the fifteenth Legislature), published April 18, 1876 (via Google Books)
  2. Decimus Barziza, at the Legislative Reference Library of Texas; retrieved January 1, 2016
  3. The Story Of Decimus Et Ultimus Barziza, at the Daily Press; by Parke Rouse; published May 9, 1993; retrieved January 1, 2016
  4. Decimus et Ultimus Barziza, by R. Henderson Shuffler; in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly; vol. 66, no. 4 (July 1962 – April 1963); page 501-512
  5. Italians and the American Civil War, by Valentino J. Belfiglio; in Italian Americana; Vol. 4, No. 2 (SPRING/SUMMER 1978), pp. 163-175
  6. BARZIZA, DECIMUS ET ULTIMUS at the Texas State Historical Association; by Jeffrey William Hunt; retrieved December 31, 2013
  7. Sons of Garibaldi in Blue and Gray: Italians in the American Civil War, by Frank W. Alduino and David J. Coles; published 2007 by Cambria Press
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