William Mahone - Childhood, Education

Childhood, Education

William Mahone was born in Monroe in Southampton County, Virginia, to Fielding Jordan Mahone and Martha (née Drew) Mahone. Beginning with the immigration of his Mahone ancestors from Ireland, he was the third individual to be called "William Mahone." He did not have a middle name as shown by records including his two Bibles, VMI Diploma, marriage license, and Confederate Army commissions. Likewise, the General and Otelia's first born son was christened William Mahone. The suffix "Jr." was added to his name later in his life, during a period of similar cultural naming transitions in Virginia.

The little town of Monroe was on the banks of the Nottoway River about eight miles south of the county seat at Jerusalem, a town which was renamed Courtland in 1888. The river was an important transportation artery in the years before railroads and later highways served the area. Fielding Mahone ran a store at Monroe and owned considerable farmland. The family narrowly escaped the massacre of local whites during Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831.

The local shift of transportation in the area was from the river to the new technology emerging with railroads in the 1830s. In 1840, when William was 14 years old, the family moved to Jerusalem, where Fielding Mahone purchased and operated a tavern. As recounted by his biographer, Nelson Blake, the freckled-faced youth of Irish-American heritage gained a reputation in the small town for both "gambling and a prolific use of tobacco and profanity."

Young Billy Mahone gained his primary education from a country schoolmaster but with special instruction in mathematics from his father. As a teenager, for a short time, he transported the U. S. Mail by horseback from his hometown to Hicksford, a small town on the south bank of the Meherrin River in Greensville County which later combined with the town of Belfield on the north bank to form the current independent city of Emporia. He was awarded a spot as a state cadet at the recently opened Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington, Virginia. Studying under VMI Commandant William Gilham and a professor named Thomas J. Jackson, he graduated with a degree as a civil engineer in the Class of 1847.