Confederate Brigade Quartermasters in the Gettysburg Campaign

Tom Elmore

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Part 1

Major William Edgeworth Bird, quartermaster of Brigadier General Henry L. Benning’s brigade. Known as Edgeworth Bird, he spent the night of July 2, 1863 at Hood’s division hospital, along with the acting brigade commissary officer, Major Walter S. Ballard, where he assisted the surgeons by holding legs as they were being amputated. He also helped bury Lieutenant Colonel William T. Harris, commander of the 2nd Georgia. At daylight on July 3, he accompanied Ballard to the front to remove the body of the latter’s brother, Captain Cecil M. Ballard, of Company C, 8th Georgia, killed the previous afternoon. During the retreat, Major Bird accompanied the wagon train, riding in a spring wagon transporting wounded officers of the 15th Georgia. They came through without incident, although Federal cavalry destroyed or captured a number of wagons ahead of them in the column. On July 6, he observed his drivers take up arms to help repulse an evening attack against the parked train near Williamsport, Maryland, which became known as the Teamster’s Fight. On July 9, while waiting for the water level to subside in the Potomac to enable the wagons to cross, Major Bird visited his brigade at the front. Born July 21, 1826 (or 1825?) in Hancock County, Georgia, he reportedly graduated from Georgetown University, and in 1848 married Sarah “Sallie” Baxter, with whom he had three children. He enlisted in the 15th Georgia Infantry as 1st lieutenant of Company E on August 1, 1861, and was appointed captain on May 1, 1862. Wounded at Second Manassas, he spent several months at home recovering. Returning to the regiment in February 1863, he was assigned as quartermaster on March 30, but was soon after appointed brigade quartermaster at the rank of major. He surrendered at Augusta, Georgia on May 20, 1865. He contracted pneumonia and died on January 11, 1867 on his plantation, called Granite Farm. (Sources: The Granite Farm Letters, The Civil War Correspondence of Edgeworth and Sallie Bird, ed. by John Rozier; Compiled Service Records of William E. Bird; https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/47985523/william-edgeworth-bird)

Major Henry Clay Deshields, quartermaster of Colonel John M. Brockenbrough’s brigade. On June 22, 1863, while the brigade rested in camp near Berryville, Virginia, Major Deshields was busy having his wagons and ambulances repaired following a week on the road, in addition to feeding the men and obtaining additional shoes for them. He was next heard from on July 9, relating how seven of his wagons, including their drivers and teams, were captured in an enemy cavalry raid on the army’s wagon train four days previous. However, he was justifiably proud of how his teamsters had bravely repelled another raid made at Williamsport on July 6, although some good men were lost. While waiting to cross the Potomac, the train was subject to a shelling by enemy artillery, but Deshields’ wagons sustained no loss. His luck held as his teams safely forded the still swollen river, but the water level quickly rose behind them, dragging other wagons downstream and drowning the animals. The contents of his own wagons were waterlogged, including the salt and bacon, while the sugar took on the consistency of molasses. In the following days his blacksmith was kept fully occupied in keeping the vehicles operable. Deshields was born on April 11, 1832 at Northumberland Court House, Virginia. He attended the University of Virginia in 1850, but did not graduate. Nevertheless he became a lawyer, as well as an agent for the Piedmont and Arlington Insurance Company. He married Sarah Furlong Wheelwright (1833-1901) and eight children were born to them between 1856 and 1875. He practiced in Baltimore until the war came, then returned to Virginia to enlist as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Northumberland Rifles (Company G, 40th Virginia Infantry) on May 26, 1861. He was immediately appointed regimental quartermaster at the rank of captain. The following year he was elevated to quartermaster of Field’s brigade and promoted to major. In May 1863, he briefly became quartermaster of Heth’s division, but the reorganization of the army bumped him back to the brigade, led by Brockenbrough, his former regimental commander. He died on October 16, 1884 and was buried in the Deshields family plot behind St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Heathsville, Northumberland County. (Sources: Letters of Henry Clay Deshields to his wife Sarah, Legacy 150 Project, Virginia Sesquicentennial, Library of Virginia; Students of the University of Virginia, A Semi-centennial Catalogue with Brief Biographical Sketches, Baltimore: C. Harvey & Co., 1878; Compiled Service Record of Henry C. Deshields; https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/22145992/henry-clay-deshields)

Major James Gardner Paxton, Sr. (middle name also rendered as Gardiner), quartermaster of Brigadier General Albert G. Jenkin’s cavalry brigade. From June 16-18, 1863, Major Paxton was involved in purchasing 5,000 pounds of leather in Williamsport, Maryland, for shipment south. He subsequently procured additional items on behalf of the Confederate government in Hagerstown, Maryland. By June 25 he was in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, engaged on a similar mission. Paxton was born on November 4, 1821 in Rockbridge County, Virginia, to Elisha and Margaret (nee McNutt) Paxton. He briefly attended the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, matriculating with the Class of 1843, but he was recorded as having attended the 1839-1840 session at Washington College (now Washington and Lee), and was awarded a baccalaureate (A.B.) in 1841. He then attended Harvard College’s Law School, graduating in 1843 with a Bachelor of Laws degree. On November 26, 1846, he wed Ann Maria White of Lexington, and they had four children, including Mary (born 1847) and James Jr. (born 1859). For several years Paxton represented Rockbridge in the Virginia House of Delegates and the Senate. Post-war, he served as the superintendent of the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad. On August 7, 1870, while riding the train with his then 11-year-old son and namesake, their car struck the side of a cut and plunged down a steep hill, killing both of them. (Sources: Official Report of Maj. Gen. Robert Rodes; Diary of Private Joseph F. Shaner, Capt. Archibald Graham’s battery, First Rockbridge Artillery, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond; Compiled Service Record of William H. Houston, 5th Virginia Infantry, letter of August 7, 1863; https://archivesweb.vmi.edu/rosters/record.php?ID=142; https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t5x63df2h&view=image&seq=97; Harvard University, Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates 1636-1930 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Published by the University; Genealogies and Reminiscences, comp. by Henrietta Hamilton McCormick, 1897; https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/106506365/james-gardner-paxton)
 
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