Josiah Gorgas
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Josiah Gorgas (July 1, 1818 – May 15, 1883) was one of the few Northern-born Confederate generals in the American Civil War. As chief of ordnance he managed to keep the Confederate armies supplied with weapons and ammunition, despite the Union blockade and even though the South had hardly any munitions industry before the war began. He kept diaries during the Civil War, which are now a popular subject of study for historians.
Josiah Gorgas was born in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. He graduated from West Point in 1841 and was assigned to the ordnance corps. He served in the Mexican War and was promoted to captain in 1855. In 1853 he married Amelia Gayle, daughter of former Alabama governor John Gayle. In 1854 their first son William Crawford Gorgas, who later became Surgeon General, was born. Gorgas served in arsenals in different parts of the country before the Civil War broke out.
He followed his wife into secession, moved to Richmond and became chief of ordnance for the Confederacy. In this capacity he worked miracles to create an armaments industry almost from scratch. The South had no foundry except the Tredegar Iron Works. There were no rifle works except small arsenals in Richmond and Fayetteville, North Carolina, plus the captured machines from the Union armory in Harpers Ferry. Gorgas established armories and foundries, found alternative sources for saltpeter, and created a huge gunpowder mill at Augusta, Georgia. Thanks to his efforts, the Southern armies never lacked weapons, though they were short on almost everything else. On November 10, 1864 was Gorgas promoted to brigadier general.
After the war Gorgas accepted a position at the newly established University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. In 1878 he was elected president of the University of Alabama and moved to the house that is still known as Gorgas House. In 1883 he died, after which his wife became the university's librarian.
Sources and references
- Frank E. Vandiver, ed., The Civil War Diary of General Josiah Gorgas (University of Alabama, 1947)
- Frank E. Vandiver, Ploughshares into Swords: Josiah Gorgas and Confederate Ordnance (Austin, Texas, 1952)
- McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988)
- Wiggins, Sarah Woolfolk, ed., The Journals of Josiah Gorgas 1857-1878 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995)
External links
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