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William Mahone (December 1, 1826October 8, 1895) was a civil engineer, railroad executive, soldier and politician. As a young man, Mahone was prominent in the building of Virginia’s roads and railroads. As chief engineer of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad, he built log-foundations under the Great Dismal Swamp that are still intact today. According to local tradition, several new railroad towns were named after the novels of Sir Walter Scott, a favourite author of Mahone’s wife Otelia. In the American Civil War, Mahone was pro-secession and served as a Confederate general. He was best known for regaining the initiative at Petersburg, when the Southern troops were in shock after a huge mine was exploded beneath them (Battle of the Crater, July 1864), and his counter-attack turned the engagement into a disastrous Union defeat. After the war, he returned to railroad building, merging three lines to form the important Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad (AM&O), headquartered in Lynchburg. He also led the Readjuster Party, a coalition of blacks, Republicans and Conservative Democrats, becoming an independent Senator in 1881. His willingness to caucus with Republicans cost him some support from the white electorate, as did his relatively lenient treatment of African Americans. ==Early life== William Mahone was born at Brown's Ferry near Courtland in Southampton County, Virginia, to Fielding Jordan Mahone and Martha (née Drew) Mahone. Beginning with the immigration of his Mahone ancestors from Ireland, he was the third individual to be called "William Mahone." He did not have a middle name as shown by records including his two Bibles, VMI Diploma, marriage license, and Confederate Army commissions. Likewise, the General and Otelia's first-born son was christened William Mahone. The suffix "Jr." was added to his name later in his life, during a period of similar cultural naming transitions in Virginia. The little town of Monroe was on the banks of the Nottoway River about eight miles south of the county seat at Jerusalem, a town which was renamed Courtland in 1888. The river was an important transportation artery in the years before railroads and later highways served the area. Fielding Mahone ran a store at Monroe and owned considerable farmland. The family narrowly escaped the massacre of local whites during Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831. The local shift of transportation in the area was from the river to the new technology emerging with railroads in the 1830s. In 1840, when William was 14 years old, the family moved to Jerusalem, where Fielding Mahone purchased and operated a tavern known as Mahone's Tavern. As recounted by his biographer, Nelson Blake, the freckled-faced youth of Irish-American heritage gained a reputation in the small town for both "gambling and a prolific use of tobacco and profanity." Young Billy Mahone gained his primary education from a country schoolmaster but with special instruction in mathematics from his father. As a teenager, for a short time, he transported the U. S. Mail by horseback from his hometown to Hicksford, a small town on the south bank of the Meherrin River in Greensville County which later combined with the town of Belfield on the north bank to form the current independent city of Emporia. He was awarded a spot as a state cadet at the recently opened Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Virginia.〔Blake, p. 13〕 Studying under VMI Commandant William Gilham and a professor named Thomas J. Jackson, he graduated with a degree as a civil engineer in the Class of 1847. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「William Mahone」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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