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CLASS OF 1841
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Gorgas began his career as an ordnance officer at Watervliet Arsenal near Troy, New York, before touring European arsenals
in 1845–1846. During the Mexican War, he commanded the Veracruz ordnance depot. Routine duties over the next thirteen years
took him to arsenals in Detroit, New York, and Pittsburgh and to Virginia’s Fort Monroe.
While stationed at Mount Vernon Arsenal near Mobile, Alabama, Gorgas met and, in 1853, married Amelia Gayle. Although a
Pennsylvanian, he followed his Alabama wife into secession.
As chief of ordnance for the Confederacy, Gorgas built an extraordinary system of acquisition, manufacture, and distribution
of arms and ammunition. Largely thanks to him, Confederate troops never lacked weapons, though often short of everything
else. After the war, he joined the new University of the South in Tennessee, and later became president of the University of
Alabama.
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