Civil War History - General DiscussionFor Discussions on Civil War Era Personalities, Politics, Issues, Campaigns, Battles, and more. Serious Civil War Discussions Only Please! All other posts will be deleted.
“I saw Major DeLoney, my former Captain, smiting Yankees right and left as he charged along in advance. He sat on his charger grandly, his fine physique and full mahogany beard flowing, he looked a very Titan war god, flushed with the exuberance and exhiliration of victory……
What a description. Sad ending though. Reminiscent of Texas Ranger Gus McCrae in Lonesome Dove. Bill. These are absolutely amazing.
Born in Beverly, Va., on 8th April 1837. Son of Lemuel & Nancy A. Chenoweth. Graduated from V.M.I. in 1859. On the faculty of V.M.I. & Maryland Agricultural College. “Owing to the large number of officers appointed [at the beginning of the war], it was impossible to assign all to active duty – Lieutenant Chenoweth was one of this number; not understanding the state of the case, and being of a sensitive nature, he gave himself up to disappointment, and became very dissipated. This went on for some months, until, by the advice of a friend, he determined to volunteer as a private.” Pvt., Co.F, 31st Va. Inf.: February 1862. Major: 1st May 1862. Killed at Port Republic: “as the battle progressed he passed down the line, around its left flank, and was advancing up the front, encouraging the men, and calling upon them to follow where he led, when he was shot, the ball entering just behind the left ear, and passing entirely through his head. He fell without a groan..." His last diary entry read, in part, “The ball is to open again, and we are, from what I can see and hear, to have another hot day. It is Shields this time. I may not see the result, but I think we will gain the victory, although I do not think our men have had enough to eat…if I am doomed to fall during the war, I hope it may not be until we are satisfied, beyond the doubt of the most timid, that we will gain our independence in the end. If it should be otherwise, I am resigned; God’s will be done, not mine…remember I died on the battlefield trying to do my duty to my country, fighting for what I consider her rights.” [Krick, Lee’s Colonels; Ashcraft, 31st Virginia Infantry, p.121.]
You can see a painting of him, together with transcriptions of letters he wrote while a cadet at V.M.I., at http://new.vmi.edu/archives/manuscripts/chenweth.html
Born in Fairfax Co., Va., in May 1820. Son of Dabney & Penelope Ball. At the age of 15, while at a local school, he felt called to the ministry and by 1843 he was a junior preacher on the Stafford circuit. Married Mary Wisong [d. 1877]. Early in 1861 he made several attempts to be appointed a chaplain in the U.S.Navy "and repeatedly denounced secession and secessionists." He also sought an appointment as a U.S. Consul. Appointed Chaplain, 1st Va. Cavalry: 1st July 1861. Major & C.S. to J.E.B. Stuart: 2nd October 1861. On 5th February 1862 he wrote to Jefferson Davis, giving some biographical details: "I am myself a Methodist preacher and have been for nineteen years. I have been a member of the Baltimore Conference, stationed for some years past in Baltimore and Washington cities. I was in charge of a congregation in Baltimore when our present troubles burst forth upon us. I resigned my congregation in June and came to my native Virginia to do whatever I might for her and the South. I was immediately called into the activities of the present struggle - first as a lieutenant in a company of mounted riflemen, then through Col. JEB Stuart's solicitations and recommendation you gave me the appointment of chaplain to the First Virginia Cavalry, and subsequently my present position upon General JEB Stuart's staff as major and chief of staff to his brigade." At 1st Manassas an observer saw Ball "sit on his horse ten paces from the line of the New York Zouaves and empty every barrel of his pistol as deliberately as if he was practicing at a target." Emory Thomas wrote that "Ball, the brave clergyman, earned Stuart's praise during the first year of the war. However, while acting as commissary during the Seven Days, Ball received a stinging rebuke from Stuart for not having rations in the same place as the soldiers. In consequence, the good reverend resigned in a huff, and Stuart let him go. Ball served thereafter as a chaplain." He resigned on 25th July 1862 [another source states 15th July], but returned to Stuart's staff as a chaplain in the winter of 1864. [In the meantime Stuart had made repeated attempts to secure Ball a majority in a cavalry regt.] He had been appointed Chaplain of the 5th Va. Cavalry on 4th October 1862; resigned on 19th July 1863, citing his inability to support his family on a chaplain's pay. In fact, his position upon his return to Stuart's staff was strictly informal: he served as chaplain without official confirmation of rank. Post-war clergyman in Baltimore. Moved to California in c.1871 in an attempt to restore his health, which was chronic: this was a success and he returned to Baltimore in the fall of 1872. Died in Baltimore on 15th February 1878. Buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. [Krick, Staff Officers In Gray, p.66; Trout, They Followed The Plume, pp.49-56; Thomas, Bold Dragoon: The Life Of J.E.B. Stuart, pp.91, 141, 280.]
Last edited by bill_torrens; 04-03-2005 at 11:32 AM.
Born in S.C. on 9th January 1825. The only surviving child of James Clendinen & Rebecca R. Turner. Lawyer. Moved to Talladega, Ala., and thence to Abbeville, Henry County, Ala., in 1849. Married Rosa Jane White on 26th May 1859, and had ten children. 1st Lieut., Co.B, 6th Ala. Inf.: 1861. Campbell Brown relates the following anecdote re 20th July 1861 at Manassas: “A Lieut. Clendening of Alabama (6th Ala. I think) was on duty at a picket post 3 miles below Union Mills, and before we had fairly got ready to move, came rushing to Hd. Qrs. pale & breathless with excitement (not fear) to report that the enemy had thrown a bridge across Bull Run from the side of the steep hill opposite & were crossing a heavy force of all arms over it. He described it minutely – said that the hill was steep & they had two bridges, one above the other…and were then crossing rapidly. He had seen infantry and artillery, and an officer on a fine white horse had made a special impression upon him. ‘What had become of his picket?’ He had forgotten it entirely and feared it was cut off – had gone beyond it with a field-glass and seeing the bridge & enemy not over a hundred yards from him had rushed to Hd. Qrs. to tell of them. Not believing his story, of which the details were almost incredible, Gen. Ewell mounted him on a courier’s horse & sent him with R. F. Mason to find the picket & point out the bridge. The picket knew of no enemy – but Clendening with a confident air carried Mason to the stream & pointed out the bridge. He showed the troops crossing – called on Mason to listen to the rumble of artillery – and to look at the man on the white horse who sat at the end of the bridge, directing the movement. It was a pure figment of his heated brain!.....He seemed much abashed when they proved him mistaken about the bridge – but said he really thought it was there. He was placed under arrest & the affair investigated. Luckily for him, Gen. Ewell sent for his Colonel, Captain &c. & found out his character. He never drank – was plainly sober - & showed intense mortification at his error. There was insanity in his family – but not much – and it was finally determined, upon consultation with medical men, that hard living & mental excitement had produced temporary insanity.” On 26th August 1862 he received orders to command the production of salt in St. Andrews Bay, Florida. Died on 12th February 1890. [Jones, Campbell Brown’s Civil War, pp.22-24.]
Last edited by bill_torrens; 04-04-2005 at 06:39 AM.
Born in Jackson, Tenn., on 3 September 1839. Resident of Yadkin Co., N.C. Attended the U.S. Naval Academy. Captain, Co.B, 21st N.C. Inf.: 12 May 1861. Colonel, 55th N.C. Inf.: 19 May 1862. Wounded and captured at Gettysburg, losing an arm; exchanged in March 1864. Wounded at Cold Harbor and in September 1864. Resigned on 7 March 1865. Dorsey Pender was extremely hostile to Connally, and wrote to his wife on 5 September 1861: “I cannot help from disliking the idea of Pamela being with him or Conally, who by the way I am told is not much of a Captain.” 19 September 1861: “I suppose those two trifling young men are still dangling around Pamela. I must say if it is so that she loves that fellow Conally, and persists in it, that she will not come up to my expectations. She who has always expressed so much contempt for conceited coxcombs and men without manliness.” 10 June 1863: “Would you believe it, John Conally called on me…to ask a favor. To get him out of his Brigade, and when I told him it could not be done he said Gen. Lee must do it and talked about letting Zeb Vance know of it, etc. In fact, he made himself very ridiculous. He is a most conceited fellow and talked as if he thought that if we were not promoted soon he would be most outrageously treated and said that if any Junior Colonel was promoted over him he would resign, etc.” Paroled at Richmond on 26 April 1865. Post-war lawyer in Richmond until he narrowly escaped death when the floor of the State Capitol collapsed in 1870; as a result of this experience he entered the religious ministry. Died in Asheville, N.C., on 31 January 1904. Buried in Riverside Cemetery, Asheville. [For a detailed account of his abortive duel with Captain Terrell of Evander Law’s staff, in April 1863, see Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, II, pp.485-90.]
Born on 13th March 1823. Lawyer in Caldwell Co., N.C. 1st Lieut., Co.H, 58th N.C. Inf.: 23rd May 1862. “When Walter Lenoir received word that he had been elected a lieutenant in his North Carolina company, he was horrified at the thought of having to drill men who knew more than he did. ‘Oh! That I could but once have gone to school for two or three months as a diligent student of the company and battalion drills, learning to give and superintend the execution of the commands belonging to my new office!’ ” Captain, Co.A, 37th N.C. Inf.: 18th July 1862. Wounded at Chantilly on 1 September 1862: “In the twilight, toward the close of the battle, I had thrown myself on the ground sitting with my body raised so as to rest on my elbow, and my legs stretched on the ground, across the fire, instead of towards the rear as they should have been, I had just been talking to Capt. Morris who was sitting by me in a similar attitude, and having turned my face from him to observe and speak to my men, when I felt an awful pain in my leg, and said, in my ordinary voice, ‘Captain Morris, my leg is broken’. A musket ball had passed through my right leg a little nearer the foot than the knee, from side to side, about the middle of the leg….”; He was soon wounded in the shin bone and lost his big toe: “I determined to try to crawl to the rear in search of some of the infirmary corps to bear me off the field, as I was utterly disabled, and feared that an artery might have been severed which would require prompt surgical aid. I managed to drag myself about ten steps when I stopped from exhaustion, finding myself in an open place caused by a little road, and a little more elevated than the fence at which we had been fighting…while lying there I had sand thrown on my cheek twice by musket balls which struck the ground by my head…I wondered afterwards at the degree of calmness and resignation to my fate which I felt in this very alarming situation. I feared the wounds I had already received would prove fatal, and that I would be struck again and killed….I commenced thinking of the things of which I would be deprived by the loss of my leg. First I thought of my favorite sport of trout fishing, which I would have to give up. Then I thought of skating, swimming, and partridge hunting….it had rained hard during the night, and I was chilled and thoroughly wet when I was found a little after dark by one of my men.” His right leg was amputated on 3rd September: “I was placed under the influence of chloroform, and my leg soon taken off by Dr. Shaeffner, surgeon of the 33rd NC, and the stump dressed. I waked up just as the dressing was complete without retaining the slightest consciousness of any part of the operation.” He resigned on 18th December 1862. “Lenoir returned home to Caldwell County after he was wounded during the battle of Ox Hill…and subsequently ordered a wooden leg from a firm in Philadelphia. The leg, Walter said in a letter, was ‘as good as they make ‘em, but…a wretched substitute for the one that I left in Virginia.’ After the war concluded, Walter farmed on a piece of property entitled ‘Crab Orchard’, in Haywood County. He sold this piece of property in 1874 and relocated to the Shull’s Mill area of Wataugua County, where he worked at improving his land by clearing it, building fences, and planting grass for his cattle and sheep to graze upon. In 1882 Lenoir won a seat to the North Carolina House of Representatives, where he served one term. In June of 1887, Walter sold his Watauga County holdings, some 7, 890 acres, which included Grandfather Mountain.” Died on 26th July 1900. Buried in Fort Defiance Cemetery, Caldwell Co., N.C. [Robertson, Soldiers Blue and Gray, p.51; Hardy, The Thirty-seventh North Carolina Troops, pp.93-94, 241 & 265.]
Born near Bristol, Va., on 13th May 1834. 6’ 1”, light complexion, auburn hair, grey eyes. Son of Abram Fulkerson & Margaret Vance. Graduated from V.M.I. in 1857. School teacher in Palmyra, Va., and Rogersville, Tenn. Captain, Co.K, 19th Tenn. Inf.: 22nd May 1861. Major: 11th June 1861. Severely wounded in thigh at Shiloh. Dropped at the 10th May 1862 reorganization. “In 1862 he was granted a furlough that he might go to Clarksville and claim the estimable young woman [Selina Johnson] who had promised to become his bride. He was married just in time to escape the Federals, who were pouring in on Clarksville. Bringing his bride home, he returned immediately to his post of duty, where he remained until taken prisoner, in spite of the serious wounds which he sustained while facing the enemy in the white heat of battle. This same spirit of determination manifested itself throughout the splendid career of this man of big heart and brain, whom Bristol was always proud to claim as a citizen.” Lt-Colonel, 63rd Tenn. Inf.: 9th November 1863. Colonel: 12th February 1864. Captured at Petersburg on 17th June 1864. One of “The Immortal 600”. Fellow prisoner McHenry Howard recalled that at Fort Delaware “we were taken out every morning under several guards to the river side and permitted to have a swim or bath, the drawback being, however, that the water was much polluted at this place, which was just below the prison pen. I remember a Colonel Abraham Fulkerson, although one of the thinnest men I ever knew, floated like a cork….’Abe’ Fulkerson would lie motionless on his back in the water it seemed to me for ten or fifteen minutes and be carried out a long way by the curent until the guard would get in a highly nervous state, thinking he was meditating an escape.” Took the oath in Fort Delaware on 24th July 1865. On 7th May 1865 he had written to his wife: “I expect to meet you soon, not crowned with the laurels of victory but with the oath crammed down my throat, a quiescent citizen of the United States. I have the sweet consolation of being conscious of having served the cause faithfully. I sacrificed everything but life, and hazarded that, many times & in many ways, in behalf of my country….I have performed my duty and now abandon the cause as (at present) hopeless, without in the least having changed my opinion as to the justness of that cause. I go now to share with the people of the south the deep humiliation which will be dictated by yankee vindictiveness.” Began the practice of law in 1866 and was a member of the firm of York & Fulkerson. Member of the Va. State Legislature & Senate. U.S. Congressman: 1881-83. Suffered a paralytic stroke while in his office on 6th March 1900. Died on 17th December 1902. Buried in East Hill Cemetery, Bristol, Va. [Krick, Lee’s Colonels; Joslyn, Biographical Roster of the Immortal 600, p.111; Confederate Veteran, 1903; Howard, Recollections Of A Maryland Confederate Soldier, pp.322-323.]
Born in Charleston, S.C., on 14th February 1829. He “was a quiet and sensitive youth. While his sister resembled their father – outgoing and lively – Dawson was bookish and reclusive, apt to miss meals while lying out in the gardens that surrounded his family’s mansion. There, he would later remember, he spent many of the happiest hours of his childhood, playing in the woods or walking with his ‘loved mother…look[ing] up into her face as she recounted the deeds of Robin Hood and his men.’ ” In 1842 his family moved to Carlowville, Dallas Co., Ala. Educated in local schools and at St Joseph’s College, Mobile. In 1848 he returned home to study law under his father, but the latter died just before Christmas of the same year. He then studied under George R. Evans in Catawba. Was admitted to the bar in 1851. In 1852 he married Anne Mathews, and had one daughter before Anne’s death in 1854. In 1857 he married Mary Tarver, and had another daughter in 1858. “By that year, Dawson had become a prominent Selmian; his name and his inheritance from his father, as well as his legal practice and his investments with his father-in-law, provided him a firm foundation in the planter class. His property included fifty-one slaves and 2,129 acres outside the town and a house and law office within it; his net worth was $133,984. With this wealth and social standing came political opportunities. In 1860, Dawson was selected to attend the Democratic convention in Charleston and was with William Yancey when the Alabama delegation stormed out in protest of the Douglas nomination. Waiting for him at his hotel was a note urging him to return to Selma. His second wife was dying, and he made it home in time to say good-bye.” Captain, Co.C, 4th Ala. Inf.: April 1861. In the same month he became betrothed to Elodie Todd, sister of Mary Todd Lincoln. At 1st Manassas, while his regiment was retreating, “a cannonball struck a fence he was negotiating and sent him flying ten feet to the ground. Now at the rear of a retreating division, musket fire pouring down on him, Dawson, along with the two colonels of the Fourth Alabama…scrambled to catch up to their fleeing infantrymen…the Fourth Alabama did not fully regain its composure until the battle was over. Dawson himself watched as Colonel Jones and then Major Charles Scott fell on his left and right, and he spent the rest of the afternoon hobbling around the rear of the battlefield, tending to the wounded and trying unsuccessfully to locate his scattered men.” On 6th August 1861 a member of the 5th Ala. Inf. noted that “It is reported that Capt. Dawson, Magnolia Cadets, 4th Ala Regt. will be tried for cowardice.” This was a rumour which circulated widely after the battle: “For a man of Dawson’s quiet dignity, the imputation of cowardice was almost too much to bear. He made minute accounts of his conduct to anyone who would listen, including the newspapers, and confessed to one of his friends that it might be better if he never returned from the war. He fantasized about throwing himself into the path of enemy gunfire and promised to meet with pistols any man willing to repeat the charges to his face. The rumors were, of course, baseless and were eventually traced to a disgruntled Selmian who resented Dawson’s social standing and was himself infatuated with Elodie Todd; nevertheless, the experience soured Dawson on the military and convinced him that petty politicking would ruin the Confederacy.” He resigned on 21st April 1862, frustrated by his inability to gain a period of leave in which he could marry Elodie; the wedding took place in May 1862. When she died in 1877, “Nathaniel began a cemetery project of staggering extravagance. Commissioning Italian sculptors to carve a life-sized marble model of Elodie, Dawson had it shipped in pieces to the United States and reassembled at Selma’s Live Oak Cemetery. There it still stands, a monument to a man’s enduring love for a woman he had called his country.” Lawyer in Selma, Ala., in 1880; married to Mary and with two sons. U.S. Commissioner of Education. Died in 1895. Buried in Live Oak Cemetery. [Berry, All That Makes A Man: Love And Ambition In The Civil War South, pp.197-218, 230; Hubbs, Voices From Company D, p.32.]
Born on 25th May 1813. Resident of Jefferson Co., Va. 5’ 8”, florid complexion, blue eyes & dark hair. Was the senior officer of the Virginia Militia present when John Brown was flushed out of Harper’s Ferry: “Lee then inquired of Colonel Robert W. Baylor, senior officer of the Virginia militia companies, whether he wished to organize the forlorn hope. Baylor also declined. Lee thereupon turned to Lieutenant Green of the marines, to know if he wished the honor of "taking those men out." Green doffed his hat and warmly thanked Lee, who thereupon told him to pick twelve men from his detachment as a storming party.” Captain of a company in the 7th Va. Cavalry, which later became Co.B, 12th Va. Cavalry. Severely wounded in lungs at McGaheysville on 27th April 1862. Captured on 20th December 1862, while "alone and unarmed...at a house engaged in civil business". He was charged with murdering a civilian; in Judge-Advocate Holt's words, the "turpitude of this crime was deepened by the fact that the sanctity of a flag of truce was violated in its commission". [Baylor wrote to the Federal authorities: "...there is not a particle of evidence to criminate me. There was no flag of truce. The parties were not soldiers, but spies; and it was positively proven that I was in Charlestown, eight miles from the place, when the occurence took place with which I am charged."] Baylor was about to be tried when the rebel advance in June 1863 caused a postponement; according to one source he was sentenced to death but this was overturned by General Kelley. Exchanged late in 1864, still incapacitated by his earlier wound. His son wrote: “my father remained in close confinement until October, 1864, a period of twenty-two months in all, when he was finally exchanged and released from a cruel barbarity. Holy Writ teaches us there is a great tribunal where justice is fully administered and the wrongs of this world are righted. Somebody must answer for the misery caused and the cruelty inflicted on my father, and I will only say, as one of our pious artillerymen used to pray, as he touched off his guns, ‘May the Lord have mercy on their souls.’ ” Died in Charlestown on 2nd May 1883. Buried in Zion Episcopal Church Cemetery, Charlestown. [Freeman, Robert E. Lee: A Biography, I, p.398; Baylor, Bull Run To Bull Run, pp.79. 116, 134.]
Born in 1842. Resident of Prince George's County, Md. Brother of James W. Emack. “Emack, a teenager in Prince George’s County, acted as a messenger for the Confederacy when he was arrested by federal troops at Pleasant Springs, the home of Andrew J. Gwyn, in 1861. While under escort to Washington, Emack fatally stabbed a guard and escaped across the Potomac River. He received a commission as a cavalry lieutenant [on 8th October 1861] but was placed in command of Union prisoners at Libby Prison in Richmond. While performng this duty, Emack earned a reputation as a ‘Yankee killer’. Emack was surprised to learn of his reputation among the enemy. Writing to his mother in 1862 from the Confederate capital, Emack stated, ‘I was not aware, until very lately, that I was such a desperate and fiendish character. I have neither bucked or gagged a prisoner, since they have been under my charge, nor had it done, but several have suffered that punishment, and very deservedly.’ Tiring of prison duty, Emack proposed to raise a company of ‘partisan rangers’ in the spring of 1862…” He was cashiered on 15th September 1862. Elected Captain, Co.B, 1st Md. Cav., on 12th November 1862. Admitted to a Charlottesville hospital on 4th August 1863. “Ordered to report to Maj. Gen. Jones for court-martial” on 7th November 1863. George Booth wrote that, after the death of Col. Ridgely Brown in 1864, the regiment was in disarray because the senior Captain was a P.O.W. "and the next in rank, Captain Emack, was not acceptable to the officers or men, not by reason of want of gallantry, but there did not prevail that confidence in his judgement or administrative ability which would have enabled him to hold the command in a state of efficiency...Colonel Johnson and myself both talked the matter over with Captain Emack, who was disposed to assert his right to succeed to the command, but we finally prevailed on him to relinquish his claims for the present and attach himself to brigade headquarters, while Captain Warner Welsh took charge of the regiment." Was slightly wounded during the Kilpatrick-Dahlgren raid. One historian wrote that in battle Emack's "deeds of daring at times amounted to madness." Booth wrote that "Captain Emack had personal gallantry to a degree that he was absolutely without fear. I have often thought that a body of 1,000 cavalry, made up of such men as Emack, would ride down any opposition and execute any order given them, at least until they were all dismounted or disabled. He did not possess the judgement or all-around qualities that marked Captain Bond, but in personal courage had no superior in the army." Admitted to a Charlottesville hospital with diptheria on 1st March 1865. Wounded 10 times during the war. After the war he returned briefly to Prince George's Co. and then went to New Orleans for 6 years. Then moved to Versailles, Ky. Died in May 1886. [Booth, Personal Reminiscences of a Maryland Soldier in the War Between The States, p.78; Hartzler, A Band Of Brothers, p.70; Ruffner, Maryland’s Blue & Gray, pp.77, 307.]
Last edited by bill_torrens; 04-11-2005 at 10:04 AM.
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Linear Mode
