Lee's Officers

[bill_torrens]

RIDGEL[E]Y, Randolph

Born in Fort McHenry, Baltimore, on 21st November 1844. Attended St Mary’s College. According to one source, he had just been appointed to West Point when the war began. Pvt., Co.B, 39th Va. Cavalry Bn.: date unknown. Acting warrant officer at Fort Boykin, on the James River, until the spring of 1862. Lieut. & A.D.C. to John M. Jones: 3rd September 1863. Lieut. & acting A.D.C. to Jubal Early: 5th May 1864. Lieut. & acting A.D.C. to Ramseur: 1st June 1864. Wounded in thigh and captured at Rutherford’s Farm on 20th July 1864. Wounded at Winchester on 19th September 1864, and was confined to bed for 8 months as a consequence. Henry Kyd Douglas wrote the following about Ridgely: "Some time in the early part of the summer [of 1864] I had been struck with the attractive appearance of a youth about eighteen years of age who had brought a message to General Early's Headquarters - a manly open-eyed, frank, compact, little fellow. Upon enquiry I found his name was Randolph Ridgeley; he was a private in the cavalry and a son of Captain Randolph Ridgeley, of fame in the Mexican War. I immediately had him detailed as a courier for Headquarters and, finding him prompt and reliable, had no difficulty in getting General Early, who knew the gallant Ridgeley in Mexico, to recommend him for a commission as Lieutenant and aide-de-camp. He soon obtained it and remained with me in Ramseur's division when General Early took command of Ewell's Corps. He was gentle and quiet in camp, but in battle the hot blood of his father would show itself and he was often not only dashing but reckless. In the fight with Averell, when I saw the enemy was moving a column of infantry to our left, I told Ridgeley to ride over quickly and inform the officers of the movement. That was just to his liking, and he was off with a flash. He reached there just as our regiments were struck and stampeded and, still trying to deliver his message, was shot and fell from his horse. He was left on the field. We abandoned Winchester that night but before I went out I called at the house of a friend and told the daughter of the house, Miss Matilda Russell...she found young Ridgeley, fearfully wounded in the thigh and apparently dying. She took his head in her arms, bathed his face and wound and spoke bravely to him. A surgeon came, had no time for him until morning, promised to come then and see if he could be saved. And there upon that blood-stained field, through that long and fearful night and all its horrible surroundings, with now and then a prowling soldier stopping to wonder at the strange spectacle, sat this young woman, holding upon her arm this halfconscious youth and soothing his agony as best she could. She was fighting for his life and she won. Randolph Ridgeley was saved...still lives, lame from his wound, and has a son in the United States Navy." May have been previously been wounded at Cross Keys & Spotsylvania. Despite the above reference to his being bed-ridden for eight months, he was appointed Lieut. & Drillmaster on 27th January 1865, and ordered to report to Gnl. Kemper. Planter in Burke Co., Ga., until moving to Augusta in 1899. A Bourbon Democrat. Died on 9th December 1918. [Douglas, I Rode With Stonewall, pp.289-290; Krick, Staff Officers In Gray, p.254.]

[rivrrat]

Bill,
I never cease to be awed by the depth of your knowledge and research.

Doug

[bill_torrens]

Cheers, Doug.

Love the rodent-related logo. When I was in Berlin a few years ago I was sitting at a street cafe when a guy walked by with his pet rat perched on his shoulder. It looked kind of cool. Have you thought of trying that out?

Bill

[rivrrat]

The rat is a relic of my Naval service. In Vietnam I served with a combined Army-Navy outfit called the Mobil Riverine Force. My little water sking friend is a detail from an unauthorized shoulder patch of a unit of the MRF. It is from my collection. I don't much care for actual rodents. I like dogs.

[unionblue]

Doug,

What sort of craft did you serve on while in the Riverine Force? A 'Monitor' perhaps?

Unionblue

I love the RiverRat flash patch. Very Cool indeed.

[ole]

Doug:

You could make a nice penny or two if you were to obtain and sell a small quantity of that patch.
Ole

[rivrrat]

Unionblue,
I was on an LST USS Whitfield County LST 1169.
Ole, that is a pretty rare patch there just wern't that many made. The one I have is a reproduction. I have been looking for years for an origional.

[bill_torrens]

FLOURNOY, Robert Watkins

Born in Montgomery Co., Ga., on 5th or 15th March 1811. Son of Robert Watkins Flournoy & Mary Willis Cobb. Lawyer. Married Amanda Cullen in Washington Co., Ga., in 1835. Farmer in Pontotoc Co., Miss. Married Louisa St. Clair Cullen in 1857. Captain, Co.K, 21st Miss. Inf.: 1861. "The offspring of an aristocratic and impeccably Conservative Georgia family, he had removed to Mississippi in 1856. After opposing secession he raised a company of men for the Confederacy and took it to Virginia. He then resigned [on 15th July 1861] because of Unionist feelings [“he could not support a war that he did not believe in”] and returned home for the duration. With the advent of Radical Reconstruction he joined the Republican party and began editing a newspaper at Pontotoc called the Equal Rights. It was perhaps the most radical paper in the state in its advocacy of what the name proclaimed. His own personal preference was for integrated schools, Flournoy admitted to the Congressional investigating committee, but such views were rare and he had not insisted on them. As county superintendent he established fifty-two white and twelve Negro schools (whites were in in a large majority there) by May 1871. In hiring teachers he paid no attention to party affiliation, but when the subject was later raised he checked and found that only eleven of sixty-four were Republicans. Soon after the schools began in Pontotoc, teachers reported that the Klan had been around; some complied with its warnings. Flournoy had not deigned to notice earlier Klan attacks upon Negroes, but he now wrote a series of articles in his paper attacking this campaign against the schools. The Ku Klux came after him on the night of May 12 [1871]. Flournoy was awakened after midnight by two friends who had overheard the Klansmen asking directions to his house….Flournoy dressed hastily and hurried to round up friends. About eight came out, including Judge Austin Pollard and a deputy sheriff, and they encountered the Ku Klux on the street. Pollard advanced alone and unarmed toward the Klansmen, who numbered about thirty, and demanded that they surrender. They declined and one fired a shot. Flournoy and the others now opened fire until the Ku Klux turned and fled. A wounded Klansman was found lying on the ground; he died about two hours later, after admitting that they had come to kill Flournoy.” The Columbus Index mourned his survival:- "...we could have heard of the hanging of this ungodly wretch with a very great degree of fortitude, consoling ourselves with the conviction that ‘his loss was Mississippi's gain.’ " Died in Pontotoc Co., Miss., on 24th October 1894. Buried in the City Cemetery. [Trelease, White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy & Southern Reconstruction, pp.294-297.] A letter which he wrote to Thaddeus Stevens on 20th November 1865 can be seen at http://www.sewanee.edu/faculty/Willi...oyStevens.html

[thea_447]

I agree Bill, that you've done some absolutely remarkable work with this thread. And I must say that I am particularly proud that you chose to include so many of my fellow Alabamians, from the Yellowhammer state.