Editing Roger A. Pryor (section)

==Postbellum activities==
In 1865, an impoverished Pryor moved to [[New York City]], invited by friends he had known before the war.<ref name="Cahners">[https://books.google.com/books?id=pZN2AAAAMAAJ Cahners Business Information review, ''Surviving the Confederacy''], 2002, accessed 12 April 2012</ref> He eventually established a law firm with the politician [[Benjamin Butler (politician)|Benjamin F. Butler]] of Boston.<ref name="A"/> Butler had been a Union general who was widely known and hated in the South.<ref name="B"/> Pryor became active in Democratic politics in New York.

Pryor brought his family from Virginia to New York in 1868, and they settled in [[Brooklyn Heights]]. They struggled with poverty for years but gradually began to get re-established.

Pryor learned to operate in New York Democratic Party politics, where he was prominent among influential southerners who became known as "Confederate carpetbaggers."<ref>David W. Blight, ''Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory,'' Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001, p. 90</ref>   Eventually he gave speeches saying that he was glad that the nation had reunited and that the South had lost.<ref name="A"/><ref name="Cahners"/>  Pryor was elected as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1876, a year before the federal government pulled its last military forces out of the South and ended [[Reconstruction era (United States)|Reconstruction]].

Chosen by the Democratic Party for the important [[Memorial Day|Decoration Day]] address in 1877, after the national compromise that resulted in the federal government pulling its troops out of the South, Pryor vilified [[Reconstruction era (United States)|Reconstruction]] and promoted the [[Lost Cause]].  He referred to all the soldiers as noble victims of politicians, although he had been one who gave fiery speeches in favor of secession and war.<ref name="Blight 2001 pp. 90-91"/> Historian [[David W. Blight]] has written that Pryor was one of a number of influential politicians who shaped the story of the war as excluding the issue of slavery; in the following years, the increasing reconciliation between the North and South was based on excluding freedmen and the issues of race.<ref name="Blight 2001 pp. 90-91"/><ref name="Sutherland249"/><ref>Pryor stated that it was the principle of federal usurpation of the rights of States to restrict the extension of slavery, not slavery itself, for which the Southern states fought. He went on to say: "The Divinity that presided over the destinies of the Republic at its nativity graciously endowed it with every element of stability save one; and now that in the exuberance of its bounty the same propitious Providence is pleased to replace the weakness of slavery by the unconquerable strength of freedom, we may fondly hope that the existence of our blessed Union is limited only by the mortality that measures the duration of all human institutions." Pryor, Roger A. "Essays and Addresses". New York: Neale Pub. Co., 1912. {{OCLC|6060863}} p. 76.</ref>

In 1890, Pryor was appointed as judge of the [[New York Court of Common Pleas]], where he served until 1894.  He was next appointed as justice of the [[New York Supreme Court]], serving from 1894 to 1899, when he retired.<ref name="F"/>

In December 1890, Pryor joined the New York chapter of the new heritage/lineage organization, [[Sons of the American Revolution]] (SAR), for male descendants of participants in the war. When admitted, he and his documented ancestors were all entered under his membership number of 4043.<ref>[http://search.ancestry.com/browse/view.aspx?dbid=2204&iid=32596_242044-00113&pid=41415&ssrc=&fn=Roger+Atkinson&ln=Pryor&st=g "Record for Roger Atkinson Pryor"], ''U.S., Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970'', Ancestry.com, accessed 13 April 2012</ref>  Annoyed at being excluded from the men's club, Sara Agnes Rice Pryor and other women founded chapters of the [[Daughters of the American Revolution]], setting up their own lineage society to recognize women's contributions and organize for historic preservation and education.

In retirement, Pryor was appointed on April 10, 1912, as official referee by the appellate division of the [[New York State Supreme Court]].