Golden Thread A Confederate officer a day for 10 Months

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Colonel Henry M. Ashby, 2nd Tennessee Cavalry
 
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General Frank C. Armstrong - Ozarks Civil War dot org

Armstrong had an interesting beginning to his Civil War career - he was a young man and a fairly recent graduate of West Point who had been posted to the U. S. Cavalry upon his graduation, and he was still with his regiment at Bull Run! It wasn't until AFTER that first battle of the war that he "decided" to resign his commission and join the Confederacy, serving with considerable success and distinction as a brigade commander in the west under Nathan Bedford Forrest.
 

Of course there's little to add about Turner Ashby, The Black Knight of the Confederacy, said to be swarthy as an Arab, a superb horseman and colonel of the brigade-sized 7th Virginia Cavalry Regiment under Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Stonewall wasn't all that fond of Ashby because of the latter's poor discipline, but was said to have wept when he learned of Ashby's death in action at the Battle of Harrisonburg, in June, 1862. Over Jackson's objections Ashby had been promoted to brigadier general by the Richmond authorities, making him likely the only general in the Civil War to command a regiment!
 
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Before getting too far away from the subject, I'd like to mention that it appears that Turner Ashby "enjoys" a rather bizarre and certainly rare distinction, at least for Civil War soldiers and even officers: the only known wartime photo of him was taken after he was already dead! The image above was made in the Frank Kemper house in Port Republic the day after he was killed in battle a few miles to the west outside Harrisonburg. His body was taken there, prepared for burial, photographed, and then lay in state in an open coffin placed beneath a window so that mourners could pass by outside, look in, and pay their respects. The sealed coffin was then placed in a wagon and removed from town prior to the battle there the following day and after the war was at last brought to Winchester where Ashby was interred beside his brother who had been killed earlier in the war.
 
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William Beall - NA #530527
Beall seems to be wearing the now well-documented Richmond "photographer's prop" Confederate general's uniform that also shows up in photographs of Henry Sibley, Texas Col. Ochiltree, etc., etc. as discussed previously here in the forums.
 
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