John Sappington Marmaduke (14 March 1833-28 December 1887) was Governor of Missouri (D) from 12 January 1885 to 28 December 1887, succeeding Thomas T. Crittenden and preceding Albert P. Morehouse. Marmaduke was also a Major-General of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, fighting in the Western Theater of the war. He was the son of former Missouri governor Meredith Miles Marmaduke, who was a supporter of the Union during the Civil War; Marmaduke would become Governor in 1885 after advocating cooperation between former unionists and confederates.
Biography[]
Marmaduke in a general's uniform
John Sappington Marmaduke was born in Saline County, Missouri in 1833, the son of Governor Meredith Miles Marmaduke and the great-grandson of Kentucky governor John Breathitt. He graduated from West Point in 1857, placing 30th in a class of 38 cadets, and he fought against the Mormons in Utah as a US Army soldier. In April 1861, he resigned from the army and joined the Confederate States Army, despite his father's unionist views, and he served in the Missouri State Guard before serving on the staffs of William J. Hardee and Albert Sidney Johnston. Marmaduke was wounded at Shiloh in 1862, and he was promoted to Brigadier-General in November 1862. In April 1863, he launched an invasion of Union-occupied Missouri, but he was defeated at Cape Girardeau and forced to retreat to Arkansas. On 18 April 1864, his cavalrymen massacred captured African-American troops at Poison Spring, and he accused Choctaw soldiers of killing and scalping the captured troops. In September-October 1864, he commanded one of Sterling Price's divisions, and he was captured at Mine Creek. In March 1865, he was promoted to Major-General while in a Union prison, and he was released after the war ended.
Postwar life[]
After the war's end, Marmaduke was appointed to the state railroad commission, and he lost the Democratic Party nomination for Governor of Missouri in 1880. However, he won the 1884 election, defeating Democratic incumbent Thomas T. Crittenden by promoting railroad reform and regulation. Marmaduke accused the US Army of carrying out war crimes during their occupation of Missouri, celebrated Confederate partisans such as William Quantrill, claimed that the Republican Party was a tool used by "carpetbaggers" to oppress native Missourians, and appealed to white racism. After 1885 and 1886 railroad strikes, Marmaduke passed his reform legislation, and he boosted state funding of public schools. He died of pneumonia in 1887 at the age of 54.
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