William G. Kendall
William G. Kendall was born around 1812 in Kentucky. He graduated from Transylvania University in 1834 before moving to Jackson County, Mississippi. He married Mary Philomena Kendall on June 3, 1835, and they had at least six children: John, born around 1841; Annola, born around 1844; Kate, born around 1849; Mary, born around 1851; Robert, born around 1851; and Lenze, born around 1856. They lived in Jackson County, and Kendall worked as a lawyer.
 
Kendall supported the Democratic Party., and he received an appointment as postmaster for Carrollton, Mississippi, in August 1834. He ran for Congress in 1843, but he lost to fellow Democrat Jacob Thompson. He attended the Democratic National Convention in 1848. In November 1850, he served as chairman of a “Union Mass Meeting” in New Orleans, Louisiana. He explained to the crowd that the meeting had “no purpose of a party character;” instead, it was a “meeting of American citizens, devoted to the Constitution, and the preservation of the Union.”
 
In 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed him postmaster of New Orleans. Two years later, however, he was arrested and removed from office for embezzling $600. By 1860, he was still living in Jackson County, and he owned $2,000 of real estate and $1,000 of personal property.
 
He apparently served in the Confederate army for a year and took part in at least three battles. He returned to Jackson County in the fall of 1862 and later served as a Confederate quartermaster. Union forces captured him along the Gulf Coast during the winter of 1863-64 while he was riding a “small boat loaded with oranges for Mobile.” He escaped on January 17, 1864, and made his way to Houston, Texas. Confederate general John B. Magruder arrested him in Houston on February 12, 1864, on suspicion of being a Union spy. He spent the next several months in prison, which he described as a “loathsome dungeon too dark to read or write…infected with insects and a poisonous atmosphere.”
 
He assured Louisiana governor Henry W. Allen that he “is and always has been a Confederate in heart and soul whose every interest and tie is with that cause.” He pleaded for a trial to prove his loyalty to the Confederate cause. He remained in prison until at least July 1864.
 
Kendall remained in Jackson County after the war, and voters elected him to the state legislature in October 1865. He apparently moved to Lamar County, Texas, around 1867, but he eventually returned to Jackson County. He joined the Republican Party in the late 1860s, and he attended the party’s state convention in 1869. He died sometime after 1869.
3560
DATABASE CONTENT
(3560)Kendall, William G.1812
  • Conflict Side: Confederacy
  • Role: Soldier
  • Rank in:
  • Rank out:
  • Rank highest:
  • Gender: Male
  • Race: White

Documents - Records: 3

  • (9895) [writer] ~ DL1599.002
  • (9896) [writer] ~ DL1599.003
  • (9995) [writer] ~ DL1599.071

People - Records: 2

  • (3560) Kendall, William G. is the [parent of] (3559) Kendall, John Irwin
  • (3568) Kendall, Mary Philomena is the [wife of] (3560) Kendall, William G.

Places - Records: 1

  • (539) [birth] ~ Kentucky

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Groups - Records: 2

  • (1) [member/supporter] ~ Democratic Party
  • (3) [member/supporter] ~ Republican Party
SOURCES

1850 and 1860 United States Federal Censuses, available from Ancestry.com; Mississippi Compiled Marriage Index, 1776-1935, available from Ancestry.com; College Student Lists, 1763-1924, available from Ancestry.com; Appointments of U.S. Postmasters, 1832-1971, available from Ancestry.com; The Mississippi Free Trader (Natchez, MS), 25 November 1843; The New Orleans (LA) Crescent, 13 November 1850; The Daily Clarion (Meridian, MS), 21 October 1865; The Vicksburg (MS) Herald, 11 September 1869; The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Vol. 5: 1853-1855, ed. Lynda Lasswell Crist (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1985); William G. Kendall to Mary P. Kendall, 11 February 1864, DL1599.002, Nau Collection; William G. Kendall to Mary P. Kendall, 26 February 1864, DL1599.003, Nau Collection; Mary P. Kendall to John I. Kendall, 21 June 1864, DL1599.023, Nau Collection; Confederate Citizens File, available from Fold3.com.