page_title: William Mahone
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: William Mahone / Political career
caption_attribution_description: William Mahone. Library of Congress description: "Mahone, Hon. Wm. of Va. (General in Confederate Army)".
context_page_description: William Mahone was an American civil engineer, railroad executive, Confederate States Army general, and Virginia 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 routes in the Great Dismal Swamp in southeast tidewater Virginia that are still intact today. According to local tradition, several new railroad towns were named after the novels of Sir Walter Scott, a favorite British/Scottish author of Mahone's wife Otelia.
  In the American Civil War, Mahone was pro-secession and served as a general in the southern Confederate States Army. He was best known for regaining the initiative at the late war siege of Petersburg, Virginia while Southern troops were in shock after a huge mine/load of black powder kegs was exploded beneath them by tunnel-digging former coal miner Union Army troops resulting in the Battle of the Crater in July 1864; his counter-attack turned the engagement into a disastrous Union defeat.
context_section_description: Mahone was active in the economic and political life of Virginia for almost 30 years, beginning in the midst of the Civil War when he was elected to the Virginia General Assembly as a delegate from Norfolk in 1863. He later served as mayor of Petersburg. After his unsuccessful bid for governor in 1877, he became the leader of the Readjuster Party, a coalition of Democrats, Republicans, and African-Americans seeking a reduction in Virginia's prewar debt, and an appropriate allocation made to the former portion of the state that constituted the new State of West Virginia. In 1881, Mahone led the successful effort to elect the Readjuster candidate William E. Cameron as the next governor, and he became a United States Senator.
  The Readjuster Party did more than refinance the Commonwealth's debts. The party invested heavily in schools, especially for African Americans, and appointed African American teachers for such schools. The party increased funding for what is now Virginia Tech and established its black counterpart, Virginia State. The Readjuster Party abolished the poll tax and the public whipping post. Because of expanded voting, Danville elected a black-majority town council and hired an unprecedented integrated police force.
  With the Senate split 37–37 between Republicans and Democrats, Mahone and another third-party candidate who was willing to caucus with the latter both had political influence. Under Senate rules, Vice President of the United States Chester A. Arthur, a Republican, would cast any tie-breaking votes. Mahone bargained for significant concessions before he decided to caucus. Despite being a freshman senator, he received chairmanship of the influential Agriculture Committee and gained control over Virginia's federal patronage, both from President James A. Garfield, and by the right to select both the Senate's Secretary and Sergeant at Arms.
  However, Mahone still faced opposition from the Conservative Party of Virginia, which aligned with the Democrats and grew even more powerful after the 1884 election, when Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected president (with its patronage perks). Mahone maintained his Republican Party affiliation, leading Virginia delegations to the Republican National Conventions of 1884 and 1888. However, he lost his Senate seat to Conservative Democrat John W. Daniel in 1886.
  In 1889, Mahone ran for governor on a Republican ticket but lost to Democrat Philip W. McKinney. It was to be 80 more years before Virginia sent another non-Democrat to the Governor's Mansion (Republican A. Linwood Holton Jr., in 1969).
caption: Mahone after the war
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