Stephen Russell Mallory Sr.

Stephen Russell Mallory (1812 / 3-1873)

Stephen Russell Mallory (* 1812 or 1813 in Trinidad , Lesser Antilles , † November 9, 1873 in Pensacola , Florida ) was a US politician and Secretary of the Navy of the Confederate States of America .

Origin and career

His parents were not mentioned. His father passed away when he was two years old. He then moved with his family to Key West , Florida in 1820 . His mother opened a pension there. He first attended a school in Mobile , Alabama and from 1826 the Moravian School for Boys in Nazareth , Pennsylvania . From 1833 to 1840 he served as a customs inspector in Key West while studying law. After successfully completing his degree, he was admitted to the Key West bar. In 1838 he married Angela Moreno. They had two daughters and three sons. One of his sons, Stephen Russell Mallory Jr. , started a career in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate , not without the help of his name . Mallory was a county judge in Monroe County , Florida and a collector in the Port of Key West from 1840 to 1845. He soon gained an excellent legal reputation and began to get involved in the Democratic Party .

Political career

The Florida Parliament elected Mallory to the US Senate in 1851. He served there for ten years, during which time he was a member of the Naval Affairs Committee . In 1860 he switched to the supporters of the secession. When Florida left the Union, he resigned as a US Senator and returned to Pensacola, FL.

Secession period

Stephen Russell Mallory

On March 4, 1861, CS President Jefferson Davis named him Secretary of the Navy, a position he held until the end of the war. The organization of his administrative and organizational work was difficult because his ministry was too insignificant compared to the war ministry. The two ministries never worked together fully either. He had problems with the lack of trained workers and factories, and he was forced to work with private companies. Although his ministry, unlike the War Department, was constantly hampered by interference from President Davis, who knew little about naval warfare, Mallory was the actual commander in chief of the Navy. The Confederate Navy also had nothing to oppose the north in terms of its combat strength. Together with the naval agent James Dunwoody Bulloch , he even went to England as an envoy in 1862 to have a new cruiser developed and built there, which was to drive the northern state ship transport from the sea. He also experimented with planned economic warfare - although he would never have used a CS Navy ship to break the US blockade. It was his idea to use iron ships for the Confederate Navy due to the limited Confederate resources. At the end of the war, he fled Richmond , Virginia with the President . However, he left the group in Washington , Georgia to continue the escape alone. He first went to Atlanta , GA and then on to his family in LaGrange , GA. As commander in chief of the Confederate Navy , he was held responsible by the northern states for the "pirate atrocities" of southern cruisers . He therefore saw it as a possibility that he would be judged and hanged. Late that night on May 20, 1865, Union forces came to arrest him and CS Senator Benjamin Harvey Hill . Both tried to escape but were captured and interned at Fort LaFayette in New York City Harbor , New York .

post war period

After his release in March 1866, Mallory resumed his legal practice in Pensacola, FL with no further commitment to anything. He lived in this town until his death on November 9, 1873 and was buried there in St. Michael's Cemetery .

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literature

• Jon L. Wakelyn: Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge ISBN 0-8071-0092-7
• The Civil War Almanac World Almanac Publications, New York, NY ISBN 0-911818-36-7
• Rembert W. Patrick: Jefferson Davis and his cabinet Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1944

Web links

• Stephen Mallory in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)