American military officer, lawyer, and politician
Henry Mason Mathews (March 29, 1834 – April 28, 1884) was an American military officer, lawyer, and politician in the U.S. State of West Virginia. Mathews served as the seventh attorney general of West Virginia (1873–1877) and the fifth governor of West Virginia (1877–1881), being the first former Confederate elected to the governorship in the state. Born into a Virginia political family, Mathews attended the University of Virginia and afterward practiced law before the outbreak of the American Civil War. When Virginia seceded from the United States, in 1861, he volunteered for the Confederate States Army and served in the western theater as a major of artillery. Following the war, Mathews was elected to the West Virginia Senate, but was denied the seat due to state restrictions on former Confederates. Mathews participated in the 1872 state constitutional convention that overturned these restrictions, and in that same year was elected attorney general of West Virginia. After one term, he was elected governor of West Virginia.
Mathews was identified as a Redeemer, the southern wing of the conservative, pro-business Bourbon faction of the Democratic Party that sought to oust the Radical Republicans who had come to power across the postwar South. However, Mathews took the uncommon practice of appointing members from both parties to important positions, causing his administration to be characterized as "an era of good feelings." He sought to attract industry to the state, and courted immigration. His administration faced challenges related to the Long Depression, most notably the outbreak of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, as a labor protest to wage cuts. After several failed attempts to quell the strike with state militia, Mathews called on President Rutherford B. Hayes for federal assistance, which brought national attention to the strike that spread to other states in what would be the first national labor strike in United States history. Mathews' handling of the strike, and his portrayal of the strikers, was criticized by labor activists at the time, and his calling for Federal assistance was questioned, though the involvement of the federal government in breaking up the strike has come to be seen as inevitable by modern historians. In later life, Mathews served as president of the White Sulphur Springs Company (now The Greenbrier resort).
Early life.
Henry Mason Mathews was born on March 29, 1834, in Frankford, Virginia, U.S., (located in modern-day West Virginia) to Eliza Shore (née Reynolds) and Mason Mathews. His family had been politically prominent in western Virginia for several generations, and his father was a merchant and politician who served in the Virginia House of Delegates. His ancestry was Scotch-Irish and/or Welsh.
Mathews received a primary education at the local Lewisburg Academy, and afterward attended the University of Virginia, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1855 and a Master of Arts in 1856. He was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. In his Masters Thesis, "Poetry in America," Mathews advocated the study of fine arts and reconciled their apparent decline in the face of industrialism with the potential for societal advancement such industry implied. On the completion of his graduate degree, Mathews entered Lexington Law School and studied under John W. Brockenbrough, graduating in 1857 with a degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was admitted to the bar and began practicing in the fall of that year. Soon afterward he accepted the professorship of Language and Literature at Alleghany College, Blue Sulphur Springs, retaining the privilege to practicing law in the courts. In November 1857, at age 22, Mathews married Lucy Fry Mathews, daughter of Judge Joseph L. Fry. They would go on to have 5 children: Lucile "Josephine", Mason, William Gordon, Henry Edgar, and Laura Herne.
Mathews became active in local politics in the years proceeding the outbreak of the American Civil War, organizing for Democratic presidential candidate John C. Breckinridge during the 1860 presidential campaign. Breckinridge lost the national vote to Abraham Lincoln, who did not receive a single vote in Mathews' home county of Greenbrier. Nevertheless, Greenbrier was generally opposed to secession in the United States and voted against it in the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861.
Military service.
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There is but one sentiment here. Every man, young &amp; old is ready at a minute's warning to defend the Old Commonwealth.
 —H. M. Mathews letter to Virginia governor John Letcher, April 21, 1861
Mathews chose to follow his home state of Virginia on its joining of the Confederate States of America. Along with his two brothers, he volunteered for the Confederate States Army (CSA) in 1861 at the rank of private. Early in the war he was assigned to recruiting and enlisting duties Virginia. In 1863, he was moved to the staff of his uncle, Brigadier General Alexander W. Reynolds, in Major General Carter L. Stevenson's division of Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton's army. He was promoted to major of artillery and served the Vicksburg Campaign. When general Stevenson's division advanced to Baker's Creek for the Battle of Champion Hill, Mathews was left in Vicksburg as the chief of his department.
Throughout the war, Mathews frequently ran into difficulties with the Confederate military. He contemplated leaving the army in 1863, and also in that year applied for a transfer from his uncle's brigade to Richmond, Virginia, though the results of this request are unclear. In the fall of 1864, he was arrested by orders of General Robert E. Lee due to a misunderstanding of a courier's message regarding ordnance movement. Lee dismissed the charges on receipt of Mathews' explanation. By the end of 1864, Mathews had finally lost all enthusiasm for the war and was relieved from active duty at his request.
Political career.
Political rise.
While at war Mathews' reputation as a leader had spread at home. In a post-war state dominated by the Republican party, Mathews, a Democrat, was elected to the West Virginia Senate in 1865 but was denied the seat due to the restriction that prohibited former Confederates from holding public office. As in-state Democratic support increased in subsequent years, Republicans amended the West Virginia State Constitution to return state rights to former Confederates in an attempt to appeal to voters. The effort backfired as this enabled the Democratic party to regained control of the legislature.
Mathews was sent as a Democratic delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1872 to overhaul the 1863 Republican-drafted state constitution. The drafting of this new constitution enabled Mathews' rise in the politics of the state. The following year, 1873, he was elected attorney general of the state under Governor John J. Jacobs, succeeding Joseph Sprigg, and served one term in which his popularity within his party rose.
At the conclusion of his term as attorney general, Mathews defeated Republican Nathan Goff by 15,000 votes in the most one-sided race for governor in state history at that time. Thus, on March 4, 1877, Mathews became fifth governor of West Virginia, and the first Confederate veteran to be elected to the state governorship. Mathews' conservative, pro-business platform aligned with the Bourbon Democratic movement sweeping the South. Mathews was the first of the Bourbons to ascend to a governorship, though many would follow all over the South in the 1880s.
Governor of West Virginia.
In his inaugural address, Mathews emphasized unity and progress in the wake of war, promising:
The legitimate results of the war have been accepted in good faith, and political parties are no longer aligned upon the dead issues of the past. We have ceased to look back mournfully, and have said "Let the dead past bury its dead," and with reorganized forces have moved up to the living issues of the present.
Mathews' address was well-received across the state. The Republican "Morgantown Post" praised the "broad, manly, and liberal address, which possesses, to our mind, an honesty of purpose, and a freedom from disguise, that is truly refreshing." His inaugural celebration, which included "flowers and flags and banners and music, feasting and revelry," had been a more elaborate affair than previous gubernatorial inaugurations in the state, setting a precedent that has continued to the present.
On assembling his cabinet, Mathews sought to reduce post-war political tension. He appointed both Republican and Democratic party members to his cabinet, a move that was uncommon in the post-war political climate.
Great Railroad Strike.
Awaiting Mathews in office were economic woes associated with the Panic of 1873 and the subsequent Long Depression. In July 1877, four months into his term, he was alerted that Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&amp;O) workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, had been stopping trains to protest wage cuts. Mathews called out local militia under Colonel Charles J. Faulkner to disperse the protest, but unbeknownst to Mathews, several in the company were rail workers themselves, and many others were sympathetic to the strike. The militia acted indecisively on arrival, and in the confusion a striker named William Vandergriff fired on the militia and was mortally wounded by return fire. Local papers blamed Mathews for the death and deemed Vandergriff a "martyr." The militia officially conveyed to Mathews that they would thereon refuse his orders.
Mathews responded by sending another militia company—this time with no rail workers were among them—to address the growing strike, but he was informed that this company too would not act against the strikers. Mathews finally complied with the urging of his administration to request Federal troops from newly elected President Rutherford B. Hayes. Mathews' decision to call for federal support garnered significant national notice to the strikes. Local newspapers were highly critical of the governor's characterization of the strikes to Hayes as an "insurrection" rather than an act of desperation, with one notable paper recorded a striking worker's perspective that, "[he] had might as well die by the bullet as to starve to death by inches." Mathews' decision to call for federal assistance has been vindicated by historians, who have come to view federal involvement as inevitable.
Hayes had vowed not to involve the Federal government in domestic matters during his candidacy several months prior, and he sought to solve the matter diplomatically. After failed negotiations with leaders of the railway "insurrection," he reluctantly dispatched Federal troops to Martinsburg. However, by this time the strike, by then referred to as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, had reverted to peaceful protest in Martinsburg while violence spread to Maryland, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Missouri. The strike gained considerable support in other states across the country.
In 1880, Mathews was again required to dispatch the militia, this time to Hawks Nest, West Virginia, to stop the state's first major coal strike, as miners from Hawks Nest were being threatened with violence to cease productivity by a rival constituent.
Relocating the capitol.
From 1863, when West Virginia was formed, through 1875, the capital of West Virginia had alternated between Wheeling and Charleston, with its location largely dependent on political party control of the state, with Republicans favoring Wheeling and Democrats favoring Charleston. Early in Mathews' administration, a vote was held to determine a permanent location for the capital, which was currently located in Wheeling. Three options of Charleston, Clarksburg, and Martinsburg were presented (Wheeling was not listed as a voting option). During the campaigning, state Democrats employed a young Booker T. Washington to engage in a speaking tour to consolidate Black opinion in favor of Charleston. Charleston won the vote, and has remained the state capital since.
State debt and treasury.
Questions of debt owed by West Virginia to Virginia persisted throughout Mathews' term in office. The question arose quickly when in 1863 West Virginia was created from the northwestern Virginia region. While both states recognized that a debt existed, determining the value of the debt proved difficult. Virginia authorities had determined that West Virginia should assume approximately one-third of the state debt as of January 1, 1861 — the year Virginia was seceded from the United States, determining West Virginia's total to be $953,360.32. Mathews' advisers countered with the figure of $525,000. Another figure given to him by the Virginians was $7,000,000, owed by West Virginia to its eastern counterpart. Unable to determine the accuracy of these reports, and recognizing that the question had taken on political meaning, Mathews pursued policy intended to suspend a resolution until the specifics had become clear. His successor, Jacob B. Jackson, inherited the same problem and further suspended the resolution of the matter. The argument dragged