Josiah Gorgas

Josiah Gorgas , 1818-83, chief of ordnance in the Confederate army during the American Civil War, b. Dauphin co., Pa.; father of William Crawford Gorgas. He was commissioned in the ordnance corps and served in the Mexican War. In Apr., 1861, he resigned his Union commission and was appointed major and chief of ordnance in the Confederate army, rising to the rank of brigadier general in 1864. The Confederacy's supply of arms was dangerously low and manufacturing facilities almost nonexistent. Although Gorgas sent purchasing agents to Europe, no shipments were received before 1862. Despite the enormous difficulties, however, Gorgas built up the South's war machine and supplied munitions to the Confederate armies until the war's end. In 1869 he joined the faculty of the Univ. of the South, becoming vice chancellor in 1872. He was named president of the Univ. of Alabama in 1878.

Bibliography: See biography by F. E. Vandiver (1952).

Gorgas, Josiah (1818–83) Confederate army officer, born in Running Pumps, Pennsylvania. As chief of ordnance, Gorgas enacted policies of importation, industrial expansion, and blockade running that turned the South from an area virtually devoid of manufacturing facilities and centralized supplies to one capable of meeting the demands of the many large Confederate armies. Earlier in his career Gorgas played a significant role at the siege of Veracruz (1847) during the Mexican War (1846–48).

Josiah was the father of William Crawford Gorgas.