John S. Marmaduke

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John S. Marmaduke bigraphy, stories - Confederate Army general

John S. Marmaduke : biography

March 14, 1833 – December 28, 1887

John Sappington Marmaduke (March 14, 1833December 28, 1887) was a career military man and a West Point graduate. He is known for his service as a Confederate Major general during the American Civil War. Born into a political family, he later became the 25th Governor of Missouri from 1884 until his death in 1887.

Early life and career

The second son among ten children, Marmaduke was born on his father’s plantation near Arrow Rock in Saline County, Missouri.Shoemaker’s pg. 189–190 His father, Meredith Miles Marmaduke (1791–1864), was the eighth Governor of Missouri. His great-grandfather, John Breathitt, had served as the Governor of Kentucky from 1832–1834, dying in office.Parrish’s pg. 16–17

Marmaduke attended Chapel Hill Academy in Lafayette County, Missouri and the Masonic College in Lexington, Missouri, before attending Yale University for two years and then Harvard University for another year. Congressman John S. Phelps appointed Marmaduke to the United States Military Academy, where he graduated in 1857, placed 30th out of 38 students.Welsh’s pg. 154 He briefly served as a second lieutenant in the First United States Mounted Rifleman, before being transferred to the Second United States Cavalry under Col. Albert Sidney Johnston. Marmaduke served in the Utah War and was posted to Camp Floyd in 1858–1860.

Notes

Postbellum career

Marmaduke returned home to Missouri and settled in St. Louis. He worked briefly for an insurance company, whose ethics he found contrary to his own. He then edited an agricultural journal, and publicly accused the railroads of discriminatory pricing against local farmers. The governor soon appointed Marmaduke to the state’s first Rail Commission.Reavis’s pg. 510–511

Marmaduke decided to enter politics, but lost the 1880 Democratic nomination for governor to former Union general Thomas T. Crittenden, who had strong support and financial backing from the railroads. Undeterred, Marmaduke campaigned four years later for Governor of Missouri at a time when public opinion had changed, and railroad reform and regulation became more in vogue. Marmaduke conducted a campaign which apologetically emphasized his Confederate service, emphasized alleged abuses of Missourians by Union troops during the Civil War, celebrated the activities of pro-Confederate "partisan guerrillas" such as William Clark Quantrill, claimed that the Republican Party in Missouri a tool of "Carpetbaggers" to oppress "native" Missourians, and made overt appeals to white racism. Ironically, considering Marmaduke’s "Confederate-focused" campaigning, he was elected on a platform (officially) focused on cooperation between former Unionists and Confederates, promising an agenda which would produce a "New Missouri".

He settled potentially crippling railroad strikes in 1885 and 1886. The following year, Marmaduke pushed laws through the state legislature that finally began regulating the state’s railway industry. Marmaduke also dramatically boosted the state’s funding of public schools, with nearly a full third of the annual budget allocated to education. He never married, and his two nieces served as hostesses at the Governor’s Mansion.McClure pg. 175–176

Like his great-grandfather, Marmaduke died while serving as governor. He contracted pneumonia late in 1887 and died in Jefferson City. He was buried in the City Cemetery.

Marmaduke, Arkansas, in Greene County is named for John S. Marmaduke.Houston’s pg. 10

His younger brother, Henry Hungerford Marmaduke, served in the Confederate Navy, was captured and was imprisoned on Johnson’s Island. He later served the federal government in negotiations with South American nations. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Two other Marmaduke brothers died in the Civil War.

Civil War

Marmaduke was on duty in the New Mexico Territory in the spring of 1861 when he received news that Missouri had seceded from the Union. He hastened home and met with his father (an avid Unionist). Even though the news was false, Marmaduke finally decided to resign from the United States Army, effective April 1861. Pro-secession Missouri Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, Marmaduke’s uncle, soon appointed him as the colonel of the First Regiment of Rifles, a unit from Saline County, in the Missouri State Guard. Governor Jackson departed Jefferson City in June, along with State Guard commander Major General Sterling Price, to recruit more troops. Marmaduke and his regiment met them at Boonville. Within a short time, Price and Jackson left, leaving Marmaduke in charge of a small force of militiamen. Marmaduke realized his troops were in no way prepared for combat, but Governor Jackson ordered him to make a stand. Union General Nathaniel Lyon’s 1,700 well-trained and equipped soldiers easily routed Marmaduke’s untrained and poorly armed force at the Battle of Boonville on June 17, a skirmish mockingly dubbed by Unionists "the Boonville Races," since Marmaduke’s recruits broke and ran after just 20 minutes of battle.