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John B

John Bankhead Magruder (1 May 1807 – 19 February 1871) was a Major-General of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War and of the Mexican Army during the Franco-Mexican War.

Biography[]

John Bankhead Magruder was born in Port Royal, Virginia in 1807, and he graduated from West Point in 1830. Magruder served in the US Army during the Seminole conflict in Florida and in the Mexican-American War, being promoted to Major after the Battle of Cerro Gordo and to Lieutenant-Colonel after the Battle of Chapultepec. Magruder served on the frontier before resigning his commission in 1861 to join the Confederate States Army. In October 1861, he was promoted to Major-General and given command of the Army of the Peninsula in Richmond, defending the Confederate capital from the Union army during the Peninsula Campaign; in April 1862, the army was incorporated into the Army of Northern Virginia. Magruder's heavy drinking led to his poor command skills during the Seven Days Battles, and Robert E. Lee sent the ineffective Magruder to command the District of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, defending Galveston from a Union attack in 1863. From August 1864 to March 1865, he commanded the Department of Arkansas, returning to command his previous district when Edmund Kirby Smith surrendered the Trans-Mississippi Department. After the war, he headed to Mexico and served in Maximilian I of Mexico's army as a Major-General, and he returned to Texas after Maximilian was executed. He died in Galveston in 1871 at the age of 63.

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