Charles Magill Conrad
Charles Magill Conrad was a Louisiana politician who served in the United States Senate, United States House of Representatives, and Confederate Congress. He was Secretary of War under President Millard Fillmore and, briefly, Franklin Pierce, from 1850 until 1853.Biography
Charles Magill Conrad was born in Winchester, Virginia, in 1804; moved to Mississippi with his family as a boy and later moved to Louisiana. He was educated under a Dr. Huld at New Orleans. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate in April 1842 to fill the unexpired term of Alexandre Mouton, serving to March 1843, and was defeated for reelection in his own right. He later served in the House of Representatives from 1849–1850, resigning to accept appointment as Secretary of War in Fillmore’s cabinet. Conrad remained in charge of the War Department from August 15, 1850 to March 7, 1853. He was a leader of the secession movement in Louisiana in December 1860. During the American Civil War, under the Confederate States of America, he served as a delegate to the Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States as a member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, and as a representative from Louisiana to the Confederate Congress, 1862–1864. Following the war, he resumed the practice of law. He died in New Orleans in 1878.
