Stephen Mallory, CSA Secretary of the Navy - a "reconstructionist"?
Jefferson Davis, Stephen Mallory, et.al.
Apparently some unidentified Fire-eaters are taking aim again – this time at the new government of the CSA.
From The New-York Times January 11, 1861 (The New-York Times Archive):
SECESSION NOT CONTENTED.
— The Provisional President of the C.S.A. does not seem destined to repose upon a bed of roses. His veto of the Act passed by the Southern Congress, reducing the offence of Slave-trading from the rank of piracy, punishable with death, to the grade of a simple misdemeanor, has drawn down on the head of JEFFERSON DAVIS the severe and violent denunciations of the more rabid Fire-eaters. They begin to suspect that even he may not be “true to the South,” according to their standard of trueness; while two of his Cabinet officers, Secretaries TOOMBS and MALLORY, are openly proclaimed to be unsafe men to be intrusted with the guidance of Cottondom’s future. The report of Secretary TOOMBS in favor of continuing the U.S. Tariff of 1857 as the Tariff of the C.S.A., “will raise,” we are told, “strong opposition and intense disgust;” while Secretary MALLORY is held up to fire-eating odium as one “opposed to the cause of secession,” and who “could not get more than one vote in the Legislature of Florida for any position whatever.” DAVIS, STEPHENS, MALLORY and MEMINGER, all suspected of being “reconstructionists,” and TOOMBS declared to be creating opposition and “intense disgust” by his anti-free-trade policy, — the South Carolina patriots must soon begin to realize that their stepping out of the Union has not been an unqualified blessing.
CSA Navy Seal: All this and ironclads, too!
Stephen Mallory lived a good chunk of his life in Key West, Florida. As a U.S. senator from Florida Mallory served on the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs. He was in favor of a return to flogging to improve naval discipline and as early as 1853 advocated ironclad warships. After Florida’s secession mallory resigned his U.S. Senate seat on January 21, 1861. He served as CSA Navy Secretary for the duration. After being paroled Mallory returned to his home in Pensacola, where he lived the rest of his life.
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Fort Taylor: Stars and Stripes still flies over it and even most public buildings in town
The same issue of The Times reports that Fort Taylor off Key west is still under federal control (The New York Times Archive):
THE DANIEL WEBSTER AT KEY WEST.
Advices from Key West, via Havana, report the arrival at that port on the 22d of February, having on board ninety recruits in charge of Capt. DAWSON, of the First Artillery. The day following her arrival sixty-two recruits were landed for Capt. J.M. BRANNAN’S company at Fort Taylor. A large quantity of stores for the use of the garrison were also landed. She coaled and proceeded to Tortugae for the purpose of landing recruits for Major ARNOLD’S command, and also six month’s provisions for that post. It was understood at Key West that the Webster was bound to Brazes and Indianola for the troops at those points, Major PORTER having charge of the expedition with instructions to accompany the troops to their destination. A salute of 34 guns was fired at Fort Taylor on WASHINGTON’S birthday by Capt. BRANNAN. The American Flag floated from the top of all the Government and nearly all the other public buildings in Key West, and the day was patriotically observed by all.
Key West 1856
