Colin John McRae

Colin John McRae (born October 22, 1812 in McFarlan , North Carolina , † February 1877 in Puerto Cortés , Honduras ) was an American businessman and politician . He was about six feet tall and of medium build. He also had light brown hair and blue eyes. As a shrewd businessman, he was energetic, impatient, and meticulous with completed commitments. He was the brother of John Jones McRae , the governor and US senator of the US state of Mississippi .

Career

Colin John McRae, one of eleven children of Elizabeth Mary and John M. McRae († 1835), a trader in Sneedsboro (now McFarlan), was born in Anson County during the British-American War and spent the first years of his life there. The family then moved to Mississippi in 1818 and settled in Winchester ( Wayne County down). His father founded a successful trading and commissioning company there, which used its own barges on the rivers and the high seas for schooners to transport cotton to inland ports. The family then moved to the mouth of the Pascagoula River in Jackson County in 1827 . McRae and his brothers were fed by a French family in Pascagoula and attended Frederick's School, which was run by a former officer of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). After receiving additional private lessons he attended a small Jesuit -College in Biloxi ( Harrison County ) for one year. When his father died on March 11, 1835, McRae took over his father's business and ran it for the rest of his life. He never married. In 1837 he helped found the Mississippi City Company, which founded the town of Mississippi City on the Gulf Coast west of Pascagoula. In 1838 he served a term in the Mississippi Legislature . He refused to be re-elected. The following years were overshadowed by the economic crisis of 1837 and the subsequent Mexican-American War . In 1840 he moved his successful Baumwollprovisions- and Kommissionärunternehmen to Mobile ( Alabama ) and went in 1842 into a partnership with his future brother-in Burwell Boykin. Boykin married his sister Elizabeth McKenzie (1823-1885) in 1843. With his brother John, Colin acquired shares, promoted the Mobile and Ohio Railroad and the Mobile and New Orleans Railroad, and was active in land speculation.

With the advent of secession, McRae worked for the Confederate States in various functions. He has always been a staunch Democratic defender of state rights and a supporter of the Alabama secession. In January 1861 he was elected to the Provisional Confederate Congress, which laid the foundation for the Confederate government. His main concern was the defense of Mobile, preparation for war and provision from the privateer capture. At his urging, the Confederate government acquired the Selma Manufacturing Company in 1862 , which manufactured supplies, armor plates and ammunition. In this context he was appointed agent who was supposed to supervise the operation. McRae's most important contribution to the Confederate States was as Chief Financial Agent in Europe from May 1863 until the end of the Civil War . When McRae arrived in Europe, the loan agreement between the Confederate States and the French bank Emile Erlanger & Co. for $ 3,000,000 had already been signed. His job was to manage the sale of the bonds and to pay out the proceeds. In September 1863, all of the war and naval departments' confederate financial transactions were brought under McRae's jurisdiction. At his suggestion, the Confederate government took control of all blockade breakers in 1864 in order to improve the credit in Europe and to secure the supply of essential goods for the Confederation. The main sources of McRae's borrowing were loan and cotton credit. He never had enough money. In 1864 he made an unsuccessful attempt to recruit Polish exiles in Europe for the Confederate service. With the capture of Fort Fisher in January 1865, the last Confederate blockade breaker port was closed and practically ceased to operate. English believers and the United States sued McRae over his Confederate assets, but when the Court of Equity ruled that the U.S. claims prevailed, McRae no longer owned any assets. Although he was in personal financial hardship himself, McRae remained in England to arrange the legal defense for Jefferson Davis (1808-1889). Believing that he would not get a pardon at home, he moved to Puerto Cortés, Honduras, in October 1867, where he bought a plantation and a shop. He died there about ten years later.

literature

• Powell, William S .: Dictionary of North Carolina Biography , Volume 4, L-O, University of North Carolina Press, 1991, ISBN 9780807867129 , p. 189

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Elizabeth McKenzie McRae on the genforum.genealogy.com website

Web links

• Colin John McRae in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Colin John McRae on The Political Graveyard website