William Mahone

William Mahone (December 1, 1826 – October 8, 1895) was an American civil engineer, railroad executive, and Confederate States Army general. After the Civil War he became a defender of the rights of freedmen and a leader of the Readjuster Party. He represented Virginia in the United States Senate between 1881 and 1887.

As a young man, Mahone was prominent in building 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 Confederate States Army. He was best known for regaining the initiative at the late war siege of Petersburg, Virginia, while Confederate 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.

After the war, he returned to railroad building, merging three lines to form the important Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad (AM&O), headquartered in Lynchburg. He also led the Readjuster Party, a state political party with a coalition of freemen blacks, Republicans, and populist Democrats. The Virginia General Assembly elected Mahone to the U.S. Senate in 1881.