John B. Floyd
This article needs additional citations for verification. (October 2013) |
John Floyd | |
---|---|
24th United States Secretary of War | |
In office March 6, 1857 – December 29, 1860 | |
President | James Buchanan |
Preceded by | Jefferson Davis |
Succeeded by | Joseph Holt |
31st Governor of Virginia | |
In office January 1, 1849 – January 16, 1852 | |
Preceded by | William Smith |
Succeeded by | Joseph Johnson |
Member of the Virginia House of Delegates | |
In office December 6, 1847 – December 31, 1848 | |
Preceded by | Samuel Goodson |
Succeeded by | Samuel Goodson |
In office December 3, 1855 – December 6, 1857 | |
Preceded by | Isaac Dunn |
Succeeded by | Robert Grant |
Personal details | |
Born | John Buchanan Floyd June 1, 1806 Brigadier General |
Battles/wars | American Civil War • Battle of Kessler's Cross Lanes • Battle of Carnifex Ferry • Battle of Fort Donelson |
John Buchanan Floyd (June 1, 1806 – August 26, 1863) was the
Early family life
John Buchanan Floyd was born on June 1, 1806, on the
Young Floyd, who was of English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish heritage, graduated from
He married his cousin, Sarah (Sally) Buchanan Preston (1802–1879), daughter of
Career
Admitted to the Virginia bar in 1828, Floyd practiced law in his native state and at Helena, Arkansas, where he lost a large fortune and health in a cotton-planting venture.
In 1839, Floyd returned to Virginia and settled in
When he left statewide office in 1852, Washington County voters again elected him to the Virginia House of Delegates.[7] Floyd also bought the Abington Democrat from Leonidas Baugh when the paper's founder won appointment as postmaster, and he had J.M.H. Brunet of Petersburg publish it, but Brunet died, and the paper was sold at auction to pay the debts incurred by its next printer, Stephen Pendleton, in 1857.[8]
Active in Democratic Party politics, the former governor was a presidential elector for James Buchanan after the presidential election of 1856.
Secretary of War
In March 1857, Floyd became Secretary of War in Buchanan's cabinet, where his lack of administrative ability was soon apparent, including the poor execution of the Utah Expedition. Floyd is implicated in the scandal of the "Abstracted Indian Bonds", which broke at the end of 1860 as the Buchanan administration was reaching its end. His wife's nephew Godard Bailey, who worked in the Interior Department and removed bonds from the Indian Agency safe during 1860, was also implicated.[9] Among the recipients of the money was Russell, Majors, and Waddell, a government contractor that held, among its contracts, the Pony Express.[10] In December 1860, on ascertaining that Floyd had honored heavy drafts made by government contractors in anticipation of their earnings, the president requested his resignation. Several days later, Floyd was indicted for malversation in office, although the indictment was overruled in 1861 on technical grounds. No proof was found that he profited from these irregular transactions; in fact, he left office financially embarrassed.[citation needed]
Although he had openly opposed secession before the election of Abraham Lincoln, his conduct after the election, especially after his breach with Buchanan, fell under suspicion. In the press, he was accused of sending large stores of government arms to federal arsenals in the Southern United States in anticipation of the Civil War.
Floyd, the Secretary of War, scattered the army so that much of it could be captured when hostilities should commence, and distributed the cannon and small arms from Northern arsenals throughout the South so as to be on hand when treason wanted them.
— Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
After his resignation, a congressional commission in the summer and fall of 1861 investigated Floyd's actions as Secretary of War. His records of orders and arms shipments from 1859 to 1860 were examined. In response to
He intended to send these heavy guns in the last days of his term, but the President revoked his orders.
His resignation as secretary of war on December 29, 1860, was precipitated by the refusal of Buchanan to order
THE INDICTMENTS AGAINST FLOYD QUASHED. The indictments against Ex-Secretary Floyd have been quashed in the Court at Washington on the ground—first, that there was no evidence of fraud on his part; and second, that the charge of malfeasance in the matter of the Indian bonds was precluded from trial by the act of 1857, which forbids a prosecution when the party implicated has testified before a Committee of Congress touching the matter.
— Harper's Weekly, March 30, 1861
Civil War
After the secession of Virginia, Floyd was commissioned a
General Floyd blamed Brigadier General Henry A. Wise for the Confederate loss at the Battle of Carnifex Ferry, stating that Wise refused to come to his aid.[12] Virginia Delegate Mason Mathews, whose son Alexander F. Mathews was Wise's aide-de-camp, spent several days in the camps of both Wise and Floyd to seek resolution to an escalating feud between the two generals. Afterward, he wrote to President Jefferson Davis urging that both men be removed, stating, "I am fully satisfied that each of them would be highly gratified to see the other annihilated."[13][14] Davis subsequently removed Wise from his command of the western Virginia region, leaving Floyd as the region's unquestioned superior officer.[12]
In January 1862, he was dispatched to the
General Floyd, the commanding officer, who was a man of talent enough for any civil position, was no soldier, and possibly, did not possess the elements of one. He was further unfitted for command for the reason that his conscience must have troubled him and made him afraid. As Secretary of War, he had taken a solemn oath to maintain the Constitution of the United States and uphold the same against all enemies. He had betrayed that trust.
— Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Early in the morning of February 16, at a
A short time before daylight the two steamboats arrived. Without loss of time the general (Floyd) hastened to the river, embarked with his Virginians, and at an early hour cast loose from the shore, and in good time, and safely, he reached Nashville. He never satisfactorily explained upon what principles he appropriated all the transportation on to the use of his particular command.[15]
Floyd was relieved of his command by Confederate President Davis, without a court of inquiry, on March 11, 1862. He resumed his commission as a major general of the Virginia Militia. However, his health soon failed, and he died a year later at Abingdon, Virginia
In memoriam
See also
References
- ^ Lewis Preston Summers, History of Southwest Virginia (Richmond, 1903) (republished by Regional Publishing Company in Baltimore 1971) pp. 757, 767, 775
- ^ Floyd, Nicholas Jackson. Biographical genealogies of the Virginia-Kentucky Floyd families: with notes of some collateral branches. Williams and Wilkins Company (Virginia), 1912 p. 77
- ^ Gatewood, Willard B. Aristocrats of Color: The Black Elite, 1880–1920. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990, p. 118 [ISBN missing]
- ^ Cynthia Miller Leonard, Virginia General Assembly 1619–1978 (Richmond: Virginia State Library 1978) pp. 427, 433, 437
- ^ Summers p. 768
- ^ Kestenbaum, Lawrence. "The Political Graveyard: Index to Politicians: Fletman to Flye". Retrieved July 2, 2016.
- ^ Leonard p. 462
- ^ Summers p. 590
- .
- ^ "The Robbery of Indian Bonds.; Report of the Special Congressional Committee". The New York Times. February 13, 1861. p. 1. Retrieved March 22, 2022.
- Official Records, Series III, Vol. I.
- ^ a b "Civil War Daily Gazette Confederate General Henry Wise Relieved of Duty; "Contraband" Allowed in Navy". Civil War Daily Gazette. Archived from the original on August 28, 2017. Retrieved November 16, 2017.
- ^ Rice, Otis K. 1986. A History of Greenbrier County. Greenbrier Historical Society, p. 264
- ^ Cowles, Calvin Duvall (1897). The War of Rebellion: A compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate Armies. United States War Department. p. 864.
- ^ Wallace, Lew, Major-General, USV. The Capture of Fort Donelson. Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Vol. 1. p. 426.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Further reading
- Eicher, John H., and ISBN 978-0-8047-3641-1.
- Gott, Kendall D. Where the South Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry – Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003. ISBN 0-8117-0049-6.
- Sifakis, Stewart. Who Was Who in the Civil War. New York: Facts On File, 1988. ISBN 978-0-8160-1055-4.
- U.S. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Recordsof the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880–1901.
- ISBN 978-0-8071-0823-9.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Floyd, John Buchanan". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 573–574. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the