Ambrose Dudley Mann

Who was Ambrose Dudley Mann?

Ambrose Dudley Mann was the first United States Assistant Secretary of State and a commissioner for the Confederate States.

Mann was born on April 26, 1801 in Hanover Courthouse, Virginia. He studied at the United States Military Academy, but left before he graduated. He later became American consul to Bremen in 1842 and was appointed to negotiate commercial treaties with Hanover, Oldenburg, and Mecklenburg in 1845 as well as all of the German states except Prussia in 1847. In 1849 he became commissioner to Hungary and in 1850 became U.S. Minister to Switzerland where he negotiated a reciprocity treaty. He came back to the United States afterwards and was appointed the first ever United States Assistant Secretary of State in 1853 which he served as until 1855.

During the Civil War, he sided with the Confederacy and devoted himself especially to the development of the material interests of the southern states. On March 16, 1861, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Secretary of State Robert Toombs appointed Mann, William Lowndes Yancey and Pierre Adolphe Rost the first Confederate commissioners to Europe. The three sailed on March 31, 1861. Mann eventually received the title Commissioner of the Confederate States of America for Belgium and the Vatican. Yancey and Rost were later replaced by John Slidell and James Murray Mason.