Title
McCrary, George W.
Description
George Washington McCrary was a four-term Republican Congressman from Iowa's 1st congressional district, a United States Secretary of War in the cabinet of President Rutherford B. Hayes, and a federal circuit judge. McCrary was born near Evansville, Indiana in 1835. Two years later, he moved with his parents to Wisconsin Territory, to what is now Van Buren County, Iowa. He studied law in Keokuk, Iowa at the law firm of future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel F. Miller, then was admitted to the bar in 1856, and, at the age of twenty, commenced practice in Keokuk. He served as the Secretary of War under President Hayes from March 12, 1877 to December 1879, when he resigned to accept his next appointment. As Secretary, he withdrew federal troops from the remaining reconstruction governments in South Carolina and Louisiana, and used federal troops in the 1877 railway strike and in Mexican border disturbances. But the greatest military conflicts during his watch occurred in the American West, in battles with certain Native American tribes in Colorado, New Mexico, and elsewhere. He was elected as a 3rd Class member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS). This was probably due to President Hayes' influence as a prominent member of MOLLUS. On December 1, 1879, President Hayes nominated McCrary to become a judge of the United States Circuit Court for the Eighth Circuit. Referencing his family's financial need after his many years of public service, he left the court in 1884 to become general counsel for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. He died in Saint Joseph, Missouri in 1890, at age 54, after suffering from a stomach tumor.
Subject
Politicians
Date
1877
Format
image/tiff
Type
Image
StillImage
StillImage
Rights
For questions about rights statements, or access to the original document please contact Lewis & Clark College Special Collections and Archives http://specialcollections.lclark.edu
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/NoC-US/1.0/