Early Years
After failing to secure a commission in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War (1846–1848), Mahone taught school in Caroline County. Although he liked the work, he cast about for something else, deciding finally to become an engineer. He remarked to a mentor at VMI that "Internal Improvements seem to be the order of the day far and wide," and he was right. A rage for public works projects such as toll roads, plank roads, canals, and railroads gripped Virginia at the time, and many saw these investments as a boost to the economy and, indirectly, a way to maintain the economic viability of slavery. In 1849, Mahone began work with the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, and subsequently worked on the Fredericksburg and Valley Plank Road and the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad. By 1853 he was chief engineer of the Norfolk and Petersburg, and in 1860 he became president.
On February 8, 1855, Mahone married Otelia Butler of Smithfield, Isle of Wight County, and the couple had thirteen children, of whom two sons and a daughter survived to maturity. According to local lore, a number of towns along the line of the Norfolk and Petersburg, including Ivor and Waverly, were named by Otelia, who at the time of their creation was reading the medieval adventure novel Ivanhoe (1820) by Sir Walter Scott. The town of Disputanta purportedly received its name when the couple could not agree on what to call it.
Civil War Service
A slave-owner and Democratic Party member, Mahone supported Virginia's secession from the Union on April 17, 1861. On April 29, he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel of the 6th Virginia Volunteer Infantry stationed near Norfolk. He was promoted to colonel on May 2 and brigadier general on November 16, but remained in the Tidewater, away from the action in central and northern Virginia. Even when his brigade was relocated in May 1862, it was for garrison duty at Drewry's Bluff on the James River. At the end of May, Mahone's brigade finally marched north and participated in Joseph E. Johnston's attack against Union general George B. McClellan's forces at Seven Pines–Fair Oaks during the Peninsula Campaign.
The battle was a bloody draw and left Johnston seriously wounded. Command of the Army of Northern Virginia
transferred to Robert E. Lee, who
relentlessly attacked McClellan several weeks later during the Seven Days' Battles. Mahone remained with the army
and was seriously wounded at the Second Battle of Manassas in August 1862, forcing him to miss the Maryland Campaign the next month.
Informed that he had only suffered a flesh wound, Mahone's wife was surprised by his
condition, exclaiming, "Now I know it is serious, for William has no flesh
After the Battle of Cold Harbor, Grant swung south to Petersburg, but there he stalled, settling the Army of the Potomac in for a long siege. It was here, on ground that Mahone had personally surveyed for the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad, that he finally earned the military glory he craved, standing forth, in the words of a biographer, "like Mars at perihelion." At dawn on July 30, 1864, Union troops in Ambrose E. Burnside's Ninth Corps exploded a gunpowder-filled mine dug under Confederate lines and charged into the resulting crater. Lee rushed in three brigades of infantry under Mahone, and as they aimed their guns down into the thirty-foot-deep pit, they found a number of United States Colored Troops. Some of Mahone's Virginians screamed "no quarter" and a massacre ensued, with many surrendered black troops murdered behind Confederate lines. Contemporary accounts differ as to whether Mahone bore direct responsibility for the actions of his troops at the Battle of the Crater; however, he was promoted to major general three days later. He fought at the Battle of Weldon Railroad in August, and then, after Richmond and Petersburg fell in April 1865, retreated west during the Appomattox Campaign, surrendering with Lee's army on April 9.
Railroad Tycoon
However, Mahone's plans angered the state's traditional powerbrokers, who before the war had backed an expansion of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Their idea, revitalized after the war, was to merge the B&O with the Orange and Alexandria, then push for its development into the Shenandoah Valley. Such a railroad would hurt Southside business interests—and Mahone—because it would route traffic to Baltimore, Maryland. Proponents of the B&O plan quipped that AM&O really stood for "All Mine and Otelia's," implying that the new line was designed to enrich only the Mahones. In order to gain political support for his plan, Mahone lobbied behind the scenes in Richmond, eventually winning the General Assembly's approval of a charter. The AM&O was formally organized in 1870, with Mahone as its president.
Mahone's political dealings on behalf of the AM&O generally involved working to create and advance sympathetic factions within the two major parties in Virginia at the time—the Conservatives and the Republicans. Neither party by itself adequately served his and the railroad's interests. The Conservatives—a coalition of moderate Republicans, Democrats, and Whigs—remained beholden to the Richmond and Baltimore powerbrokers who opposed the railroad, while the Republicans had trouble mobilizing a white constituency willing and able to work with the party's black supporters. Still, Mahone found particular success in organizing younger, more business-minded Virginians in support of his various schemes.
Mahone's participation in politics might have ended there but for the failure of the AM&O. In 1871 Mahone sold company bonds to a group of London investors. Two years later, a financial panic hit the United States when a major American bank folded after speculating on railroad stock. Other banks crashed, credit dried up, and the stock market closed temporarily. There was rioting in New York. Although Mahone tried to weather the storm, the AM&O failed to meet its payments to the investors, and in 1876 the company went into receivership. What was bad luck for the railroad, however, proved to be good fortune for Mahone. He now had the time and the freedom to focus on his own political ambitions.
Readjuster Party
That Conservatives were forced to raise taxes and cut social services, including public education, provided a political opening for Mahone. The Funders, as the Conservatives were sometimes called, enacted policies that aggravated African Americans and poor whites who depended on state services and came to perceive the party as representing elite eastern interests. Proposing to "readjust," or repudiate, a portion of the state debt, Mahone lost the nomination to Frederick W. M. Holliday, who was elected governor and served from 1878 until 1881. Once in office, Holliday, a Winchester native and veteran of the Stonewall Brigade, defended his party's funding of the debt and argued that free public schools were a luxury. "Our fathers did not need free schools to make them what they were," he told the legislature. "Free schools are not a necessity." Misreading the public sentiment in Virginia, Holliday's policies invited the formation of the new Readjuster Party.
Significantly, Democrats allowed many Readjuster policies to stand, thus preventing any resurgence of the coalition. As Democrats took control they also dismantled the Readjuster machine, stripping Mahone's patronage appointees of their positions. Mahone remained in the Senate, and became more and more associated with the Republican Party. In 1886, Fitzhugh Lee, a Democrat, was elected governor, and Mahone lost his Senate seat to Democrat John W. Daniel, a former aide to Confederate general Jubal A. Early.
Later Years
Time Line
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December 1, 1826 - William Mahone is born in Monroe, Southampton County, to Fielding Jordan Mahone and Martha Drew Mahone.
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August 22, 1831 - After hearing news of Nat Turner's slave uprising, Fielding Mahone evacuates his wife, Martha, and son, William, from Monroe, Southampton County.
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1835 - Fielding Mahone moves his family from Monroe to Delaware, Southampton County.
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1840 - Fielding Mahone moves his family from Delaware to Jerusalem, Southampton County.
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July 20, 1844 - William Mahone matriculates at the Virginia Military Institute.
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July 5, 1847 - William Mahone graduates from the Virginia Military Institute.
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January 1848 - William Mahone starts work as a teacher at the Rappahannock Academy in Caroline County.
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July 1849 - William Mahone begins work as a civil engineer for the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.
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1852 - William Mahone begins work as chief engineer for the Fredericksburg and Valley Plank Road Company.
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April 12, 1853 - William Mahone is elected chief engineer for the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad Company.
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February 8, 1855 - William Mahone marries Otelia Butler of Smithfield, Isle of Wight County. The couple soon moves to Norfolk.
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April 1860 - William Mahone is elected president of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad Company.
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April 29, 1861 - William Mahone is commissioned a lieutenant colonel of infantry in Virginia and takes command of troops in the vicinity of Norfolk.
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May 2, 1861 - William Mahone is promoted to colonel.
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November 16, 1861 - William Mahone is promoted to brigadier general.
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May 15, 1862 - William Mahone leaves Norfolk with his brigade for garrison duty at Drewry's Bluff along the James River.
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May 31–June 1, 1862 - After serving away from the action, William Mahone participates in the Battle of Seven Pines–Fair Oaks.
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August 29–30, 1862 - William Mahone is seriously wounded at the Second Battle of Manassas. His wife, Otelia, exclaims that he "has no flesh whatsoever."
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May 1863 - William Mahone is elected to the Senate of Virginia, representing Norfolk. He does not take his seat until March 1864.
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July 30, 1864 - At the Battle of the Crater, William Mahone leads two Virginia brigades in a successful counterattack against Ambrose E. Burnside's Union forces.
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August 2, 1864 - William Mahone is promoted to major general three days after leading a successful countercharge at the Battle of the Crater.
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December 7, 1865 - William Mahone is elected president of the South Side Railroad.
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December 1865 - As president of both the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad and the South Side Railroad, William Mahone proposes to consolidate the two lines, along with the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, to create a single, united route through the south of Virginia.
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September 6, 1866 - William Mahone's attempt to consolidate three railroads through the south of Virginia to Tennessee fails when the board of directors of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad rejects his plans.
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April 18, 1867 - The General Assembly passes the Southside Consolidation Act, which mandates the consolidation of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad, the South Side Railroad, and the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, forming the Atlantic, Mississippi, and Ohio Railroad. The act also calls for a fourth line to be built: the Virginia and Kentucky Railroad.
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October 10, 1867 - William Mahone is elected president of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad.
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April 4, 1868 - General John M. Schofield appoints Henry Horatio Wells provisional governor of Virginia, succeeding Francis Harrison Pierpont.
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May 1, 1868 - The Southside Consolidation Act lapses due to failure to carry out its financial provisions, reopening the fight between William Mahone and the Baltimore and Northern Virginia lobbies who oppose his plans to merge three railroads.
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May 6, 1868 - Henry Horatio Wells receives the endorsement for governor by the Republican Party convention in Virginia.
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November 17, 1868 - William Mahone is reelected president of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. His reelection signals board approval of his consolidation plans, which excites opposition from opponents across Virginia.
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June 17, 1870 - "An Act to authorize the formation of the Atlantic, Mississippi, and Ohio Railroad Company" is passed by the General Assembly.
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November 12, 1870 - The Atlantic, Mississippi, and Ohio Railroad Company is organized, with William Mahone as president.
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September 29, 1871 - London investor John Collinson buys most of the bonds of the Atlantic, Mississippi, and Ohio Railroad in a loan deal secured by William Mahone.
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August 6, 1873 - Former Confederate general James Lawson Kemper is nominated as the Conservative candidate for governor, partially due to the politicking of William Mahone, who sees Kemper as an ally of his railroad business interests. He is elected governor.
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June 13, 1876 - The Atlantic, Mississippi, and Ohio Railroad goes into receivership because it cannot pay its debt burdens to John Collinson and other English investors.
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1877 - William Mahone runs for the Conservative Party nomination for governor of Virginia on a platform of readjusting the state debt. He is defeated by Frederick W. M. Holliday, who is elected governor.
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1881–1882 - William Mahone, a Readjuster who caucuses with the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate, serves as chairman of the agriculture committee.
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March 4, 1881 - William Mahone, a Readjuster, begins his term in the U.S. Senate.
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November 1881 - Under William Mahone's guidance, William E. Cameron, of the Readjuster Party, is elected governor.
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1883–1886 - William Mahone, a Readjuster who caucuses with the Republican Party in the U.S. Senate, serves as chairman of the public buildings and grounds committee.
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March 3, 1887 - William Mahone ends his one term in the U.S. Senate. In the most recent election, his Readjuster Party lost the General Assembly to the Conservatives, who elected John W. Daniel to the Senate.
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1889 - William Mahone runs for governor as a Republican and is defeated by Democrat Philip W. McKinney.
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October 8, 1895 - William Mahone dies in Washington, D.C., from the effects of a stroke. He is buried in Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg.
References
Further Reading
External Links
Cite This Entry
- APA Citation:
Luebke, P. C. William Mahone (1826–1895). (2016, July 19). In Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved from http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Mahone_William_1826-1895.
- MLA Citation:
Luebke, Peter C. "William Mahone (1826–1895)." Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, 19 Jul. 2016. Web. READ_DATE.
First published: July 27, 2010 | Last modified: July 19, 2016
Contributed by Peter C. Luebke, a doctoral student in the department of history at the University of Virginia.