John S. Marmaduke

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John S. Marmaduke

John Sappington Marmaduke (March 14, 1833 – December 28, 1887) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, and was governor of Missouri from 1884 until his death in 1887.

1 Early life and career
2 Civil War
3 Postbellum career
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Early life and career

The second son among ten children, John S. Marmaduke was born on his father's farm near Arrow Rock in Saline County, Missouri. 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.

Marmaduke attended Chapel Hill Academy in Lafayette County, 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, and placed 30th out of 38 students. He briefly served as a 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 Utah during the Mormon War in 1858–1860.

[edit] 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, met with his father (an avid Unionist), and finally decided to resign from the U.S. Army, effective April 1861. Pro-secession Missouri Governor Claiborne F. Jackson soon appointed Marmaduke as the first colonel of the First Regiment of Rifles, a company from Saline County in the Missouri State Guard. Governor Jackson departed Jefferson City in June, along with General Sterling Price, to recruit more Southern troops. Marmaduke and his company met them at Boonville. Within a short time, Price and Jackson left, leaving Marmaduke in charge of a small force of 1,800 militiamen. Union General Nathaniel Lyon's 1,700 well-trained and equipped soldiers routed Marmaduke's poorly trained force at the Battle of Boonville on June 17, an engagement mockingly dubbed by Unionists as "the Boonville Races," as Marmaduke's recruits fled after a brief 20-minute firefight.

Soon after, Marmaduke resigned his commission in the Missouri State Guard and traveled to the Confederate national capital, Richmond, Virginia, where he received a commission as a first lieutenant in the regular Confederate States Army. The War Department ordered him to report for duty in Arkansas, where he soon was commissioned as the Lieutenant Colonel of the 1st Arkansas Battalion. He served on the staff of Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee, a former West Point instructor of infantry tactics. His former Mormon War commander, Albert S. Johnston, asked Marmaduke to join his staff in early 1862.

Marmaduke was wounded in action at the Battle of Shiloh as Colonel of the 3rd Confederate Infantry, incapacitating him for several months. In November 1862, the Confederate War Department confirmed Marmaduke's promotion to brigadier general. His first battle as a brigade commander was at the Battle of Prairie Grove. In April 1863, Marmaduke departed Arkansas with 5,000 men and ten artillery pieces and invaded Missouri. However, he was repulsed at the Battle of Cape Girardeau and forced to return to Helena, Arkansas.

Controversy soon followed Marmaduke. In September 1863, he accused his immediate superior officer, Maj. Gen. Lucius M. "Marsh" Walker, of cowardice in action for not being present with his men on the battlefield. Walker, slighted by the insult, challenged Marmaduke to a duel, which resulted in Walker's death on September 6.

Marmaduke later commanded a cavalry division in the Trans-Mississippi Department, serving in the Red River Campaign and Price's Raid into Missouri, where he was captured at the Battle of Mine Creek during the retreat from the Battle of Westport. While still a prisoner of war, Marmaduke was promoted to major general in March 1865. He was released and exchanged after the war ended.

[edit] Postbellum career

Marmaduke returned to Missouri and settled in St. Louis, where he briefly worked 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.

Marmaduke decided to enter politics, as had several of his family members, but handily 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. Elected to the post on a platform that urged cooperation by former Unionists and Confederates, Marmaduke pursued an agenda that called for a "New Missouri," and he successfully potentially crippling railroad strikes in 1885 and 1886. The following year, Governor Marmaduke pushed laws through the state legislature that finally began regulating the state's railroad industry. Interested in social issues as well, Marmaduke dramatically boosted the state's funding of public schools, with nearly a full third of the state's annual budget allocated to education. He never married, and his two nieces served as hostesses at the Governor’s Mansion.

Like his great-grandfather, Marmaduke died while serving a a governor. He contracted pneumonia late in 1887 and passed away in Jefferson City. He is buried there in the City Cemetery.

Marmaduke, Arkansas, in Greene County is named for the general.

His younger brother, Henry Hungerford Marmaduke, served in the Confederate Navy, was imprisoned on Johnson's Island, served the government in dealing with South American governments, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Two other brothers died in the Civil War.

[edit] References

Hinze, David; Farnham, Karen, The Battle of Carthage, Border War in Southwest Missouri, July 5, 1861. Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing, 2004. ISBN 1-58980-223-3.
Ponder, Jerry, Major General John S. Marmaduke, C.S.A., Doniphan, Missouri: Ponder Books, 1999. ISBN 0-9623922-8-6.
Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders, Louisiana State University Press, 1959, ISBN 0-8071-0823-5.