James Edmund Boyd

James Edmund Boyd (February 14, 1845 – August 21, 1935) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. Education and career Boyd was born in Alamance County, North Carolina, a child of Archibald J. Boyd and Margaret Wetherly Brannock. He served in the American Civil War as a private in the Confederate States Army (13th North Carolina Infantry and 1st North Carolina Cavalry). Boyd attended Davidson College and read law in 1868. He was in private practice of law in North Carolina from 1868 to 1880. He was a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives from 1874 to 1875 and was a delegate to the North Carolina Constitutional Convention in 1875. He was the United States Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina from 1880 to 1885. He was again in private practice of law in North Carolina from 1885 to 1897. He was a United States Assistant Attorney General from 1897 to 1900. Boyd supervised the federal investigations into the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898 in North Carolina and the Phoenix Election Riot in South Carolina. No white person accused of killing black citizens was prosecuted in either state. The December 8 issue of the Wilmington Messenger reported that Boyd was arrested by federal agents and accused of membership in the Ku Klux Klan.