Isaac M. St. John
| Isaac M. St. John | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
November 19, 1827 Augusta, Georgia |
| Died | April 7, 1880 (aged 52) White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia |
| Buried | Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia |
| Allegiance |
 Confederate States of America
|
| Service/branch |
 Confederate States Army
|
| Years of service | 1861–1865 |
| Rank |
 Brigadier General
|
| Commands held |
|
| Battles/wars | American Civil War |
| Other work | Civil engineer |
Isaac Munroe St. John (November 19, 1827 – April 7, 1880) was a Confederate States Army brigadier general during the American Civil War. He was a lawyer, newspaper editor and civil engineer before the Civil War and a civil engineer after the Civil War. As a civil engineer, he worked for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company (mainly in Maryland) and the Blue Ridge Railroad Company in South Carolina before the Civil War. After the war, he worked for the Louisville, Cincinnati and Lexington Railroad in Kentucky; the city of Louisville, Kentucky; and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company (mainly in Virginia and West Virginia).
Isaac M. St. John was born on November 19, 1827 in Augusta, Georgia. He moved to New York, New York with his parents, Isaac Richards St. John and Abigail Richardson Munroe St. John, and attended Poughkeepsie Collegiate School. He graduated from Yale University in 1845 and became a lawyer. In 1847, St. John became the editor of the Baltimore Patriot. He was a civil engineer with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company between 1848 and 1855. He then moved to South Carolina where he became a civil engineer and chief of construction for the Blue Ridge Railroad Company between 1855 and 1861.
Isaac M. St. John began the Civil War as a private in the Fort Hill Guards of South Carolina in April 1861. By October 3, 1861, he was an engineer in the Army of the Peninsula. By April 1862, he was Brigadier General John B. Magruder's chief engineer at Yorktown, Virginia in the Peninsula Campaign with the rank of captain. On April 18, 1862, St. John became the Chief of the Bureau of Nitre and Mining, an assignment which he held until February 16, 1865. In this position, he produced crucial ordnance supplies, including gunpowder and metals, for the Confederate Army, even as the Union blockade of Southern ports became increasingly effective. Among other things, he found limestone caves containing saltpeter in the southern Appalachian Mountains. He was appointed major, CSA artillery, September 26, 1862 and lieutenant colonel, CSA, Nitre and Mining Corps, May 28, 1863.
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