Williams Carter Wickham

Williams Carter Wickham

Williams Carter Wickham (born September 21, 1820 in Richmond , Virginia , † July 23, 1888 ibid) was an American lawyer , railroad man and politician . He was also a general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War .

Early years

Williams Carter Wickham, son of Anne Butler Carter and William Fanning Wickham (1793–1880), was born in the independent city of Richmond about five and a half years after the end of the British-American War . His paternal grandfather was constitutional lawyer John Wickham (1763-1839). On the maternal side, his ancestry goes to the Nelson and Carter families, who were among the first families in Virginia and were important in the Colony of Virginia . His great-grandfather was General Thomas Nelson Jr. (1738–1789), a signatory to the Declaration of Independence and governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War . Thomas "Scotch Tom" Nelson (1677-1747), who was one of the founders of the city of Yorktown ( York County ) in the late 17th century , is one of his ancestors . He was also a descendant of Robert King Carter (1663-1732), the royal governor of Virginia and one of the richest landowners in the late 17th and early 18th centuries . His mother was a cousin of General Robert Edward Lee (1807-1870), whose mother Anne Hill Carter was born on the Shirley Plantation .

Williams Carter Wickham spent most of his youth on his father's plantation , Hickory Hill , which was 3,200 acres (13 km ² ) in size. It was about 20  miles north of Richmond and 5 miles east of Ashland ( Hanover County ). Hickory Hill has long been a remote addition to the Shirley Plantation, the majority of which came into the possession of the Carter family through a contract dated March 2, 1734. Wickham graduated from the University of Virginia and was admitted to the bar in 1842. His student days were overshadowed by the economic crisis of 1837 and the following years by the Mexican-American War . He married Lucy Penn Taylor and had several children with her. Over time, he became a judge. In 1849 he was elected to the Virginia House of Representatives . He joined the Virginia Cavalry Militia in 1858 , where he held the rank of captain . In 1861 he was elected as a unionist in the Henrico County secession assembly, where he voted against the secession of Virginia.

Civil war

After the Virginia secession, Wickham placed his company , the Hanover Dragoons, in the service of the Confederate Army. The governor John Letcher (1813-1884) appointed Wickham after the First Battle of Manassas in September 1861 to lieutenant colonel in the 4th  Cavalry Regiment of Virginia. On May 4, 1862, Wickham suffered multiple saber wounds in a cavalry attack during the Battle of Williamsburg . In his injured condition he was captured but quickly released on his word of honor. In August 1862 he received a promotion to colonel in the 4th Cavalry Regiment of Virginia. He was wounded again at the Battle of Sharpsburg , this time by shrapnel on the neck. After recovering, he participated in the Battles of Chancellorsville , Brandy Station, and Gettysburg . General Wade Hampton III. (1818-1902) blamed the failures of Wickham's 4th Cavalry Regiment of Virginia at Brandy Station for the death of his brother, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hampton (1829-1863). On September 9, 1863 Wickham was promoted to brigadier general and took command of a brigade in the division under Fitzhugh Lee (1835-1905). Wickham took part in the Battle of the Yellow Tavern on May 11, 1864 . Major General James Ewell Brown Stuart (1833–1864) was fatally wounded during the fighting. His last order was:

"Order Wickham to dismount his brigade and attack."

After the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Fishers Hill in September 1864, Wickham at the Battle of Milford thwarted the attempt by Major General Philip Sheridan (1831–1888 ) to enclose and destroy the Confederate forces under Major General Jubal Anderson Early (1816–1894). He then attacked the Union cavalry in the independent city of Waynesboro and forced them to retreat to Bridgewater ( Rockingham County ).

Wickham returned his officer's license on October 5, 1864, and took his seat in the Second Confederate Congress , to which he was elected when he was on the battlefield. Realizing that the days of the Confederate States were over, he attended the Hampton Roads Conference with the aim of an early end to the war.

Postwar and late years

After the Confederate States surrendered, Wickham campaigned to improve harmony between the states and to reorganize the economy of Virginia, which was destroyed by the Civil War. He became a Republican . In the presidential election of 1872 he voted as an elector for Major General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885).

Wickham was elected president of the Virginia Central Railroad in November 1865 , one of several railroad companies that sustained the most damage during the war. In 1868 the company merged with the Covington and Ohio Railroad to form the Chesapeake and Ohio , of which he became the new president. In his new role he worked to complete the railway line to the Ohio River , a long-cherished dream of the Virginians. In contrast to William Mahone (1826-1895), a confederate official friend and chief of the railroad, Wickham was unable to raise the necessary capital, whether from Virginia or Europe. With a view to New York City , he was successful in winning an investment group, which was led by Collis P. Huntington (1821-1900). Shortly after the completion of the western section of the transcontinental railroad, Huntington joined the Chesapeake and Ohio as a member of the so-called "Big Four" and became their new president. His contacts and reputation helped him raise $ 15 million in funding from New York donors for the project, which ended up costing $ 23 million. The last nail ceremony for 428 miles (689 km) stretch from Richmond to Ohio River was in on 29 January 1873 Hawks Nest railway bridge in New River Valley in the Town of Ansted in Fayette County ( West Virginia held).

After Huntington took over the presidency of the Chesapeake and Ohio, Wickham served as its vice-president from 1869 to 1878. The company was foreclosed in 1878 and Wickham won the bid. Under their leadership, the railway line was expanded east of Richmond through the new Church Hill Tunnel and on the Virginia Peninsula to Williamsburg ( James City County ) to reach the coal piers at the port of Hampton Roads , the largest ice-free port in the United States on the east coast at Newport News in Warwick County . In the ten years between 1878 and 1888 the Chesapeake and Ohio began to develop the coal deposits and to transport them to the east. Coal transportation became the core business of Chesapeake and Ohio at that time, which is still the case with successor company CSX Transportation after more than 125 years. Collis P. Huntington grew his fortune at the same time. In this context, he founded the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Newport News , which helped the small community to become one of only two in Virginia to become an independent city without being an incorporated city. Newport News was merged with what was formerly Warwick County in 1958, grew and became one of the major cities off Hampton Roads.

In addition to his railroad activities, Wickham continued to work in politics. He had an office in Richmond as well as one at his residence in Hanover County. In 1871 he became Chairman of the Board of Supervisors in Hanover County and in 1883 sat in the Virginia Senate . He died in his Richmond office in 1888 and was then buried in Hickory Hill Cemetery near Ashland.

Honors

Statue of Williams Carter Wickham in Monroe Park in Richmond, Virginia

A statue of Williams Carter Wickham has stood in Monroe Park in Richmond since 1891 . It was donated by his former comrades in the Confederate Army and employees of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.

literature

• Carter, Thomas Henry: A Gunner in Lee's Army: The Civil War Letters of Thomas Henry Carter , University of North Carolina Press Books, 2014, ISBN 978-1-4696-1874-6 , p. 42
• Parker, Robert W .: Lee's Last Casualty: The Life and Letters of Sgt. Robert W. Parker, Second Virginia Cavalry , University of Tennessee Press, 2008, ISBN 978-1-57233-630-8 , p. 202
• Ruffin, Edmund: The Diary of Edmund Ruffin: Toward independence, October 1856-April 1861 , LSU Press, 1972, ISBN 978-0-8071-0948-9 , p. 184
• Sedore, Timothy S .: An Illustrated Guide to Virginia's Confederate Monuments , SIU Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-8093-8625-3 , p. 150
• Jones, Terry L .: Historical Dictionary of the Civil War , Scarecrow Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-8108-7953-9 , pp. 1599f
• Young, Bennett H .: Confederate Wizards of the Saddle , JS Sanders Books, 1999, ISBN 978-1-4616-6258-7 , pp. 506f

Individual evidence

1. ^ William Fanning Wickham in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved February 8, 2015.
2. ↑ Virginia's James River Plantations
3. ↑ Hickory Hill
4. ^ The Building of the C&O Railway
5. ^ Williams Carter Wickham in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved February 8, 2015.