William Bruce Mumford

William Bruce Mumford (December 5, 1819 – June 7, 1862) was a North Carolina native and resident of New Orleans, who tore down the U.S. flag raised over New Orleans after the city was captured by Union troops during the American Civil War. In response, Union Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, the commander of the Union ground forces, had Mumford court-martialed and executed for treason. He was the last person executed for treason against the United States.

Biography

Mumford's life leading up to the incident which resulted in his execution was relatively unremarkable. A native of North Carolina, he owned no slaves, nor much of anything else, and had not volunteered to fight in the Civil War. However, he had been in the United States Army before secession. He was a noted gambler. He was married to Mary Mumford; after his death she never remarried.

Flag incident

On April 25, 1862, as Union Navy ships approached Confederate New Orleans, Commodore David Farragut ordered two officers to send a message to Mayor John T. Monroe requesting removal of Confederate flags from the United States Custom House (New Orleans), New Orleans Mint, and New Orleans City Hall at the Gallier Hall building, and the replacement of Confederate flags with U.S. flags. Monroe refused, claiming it was beyond his jurisdiction. On April 26, Captain Henry W. Morris sent ashore Marines from the to raise the U.S. flag over the mint. Morris did so without any order from Farragut, who was still trying to receive an official surrender from the mayor.

As the Marines raised the flag, a number of locals gathered around in anger. The Marines told them that the Pocahontas would fire on anyone attempting to remove the flag. However, a group of seven individuals, including Mumford, decided to remove the flag from the mint. The Pocahontas fired and Mumford was injured by a flying piece of brick. With cheers from local onlookers, he carried the flag to the mayor at city hall, but onlookers tore at it as he walked, reducing it to a stub. Later on Butler assisted Mumford's wife and helped her find a job in Washington.

Mumford was buried in a vault in Cypress Grove Cemetery, New Orleans. In 1950, the Ladies' Memorial Association moved Mumford's remains to the base of the Confederate monument at Greenwood Cemetery, New Orleans. The association placed a small stone there that reads "William B. Mumford, Martyr to the Cause of the Confederacy, June 7, 1862, Aged 42 years."

Legacy Mumford's name has been mentioned with figures such as Abraham Lincoln, Elmer E. Ellsworth, John Pelham and Stonewall Jackson, which represent "martyred heroes and violent villains for both the North and South." In the South, Mumford was praised as a hero and a martyr, while conversely in the North, he was condemned as a coward and a treasonous thug. After his wife's death in 1912, the South Carolinian newspaper The Times and Democrat noted that just hearing the name Mumford in the South could still "stir the hearts of the older people with bitter memories of General Butler’s brutality and revengefulness."

At the Confederate Memorial Hall Museum, a piece of the flag that Mumford tore, the rope that he was hanged with, and a large image of him are on display.