Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/665

Rh ginia and gained special distinction by its fighting at Gettysburg. After the war General Davis returned to the practice of law and resumed in some measure the care of his farming interests. His home was at Biloxi, Miss., where he died September 15, 1896.

James Chestnut, Jr., aide-de-camp on the staff of President Davis, was born at Camden, South Carolina, in 1815. In that State his family had for many years been distinguished for patriotism and lofty character. He received his collegiate education at Princeton, with graduation in 1834, after which he devoted himself to that generous and hospitable life which was characteristic of the ante-bellum period in the South. In 1842 he was first elected to the State legislature, in which he served ten years as a member of the lower house and four years as a State senator, from 1854 to 1858. During this period of faithful public service he became widely known as a representative South Carolinian and esteemed for his integrity and capacity in public affairs. Promotion to higher trusts naturally followed in 1858, when he was elected to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy in the delegation of the State. In 1859, on account of the aggressive anti-slavery agitation, he tendered his resignation to the presiding officer of the Senate, but no action being taken he continued to conscientiously perform his duty in representation of his State, until South Carolina withdrew from the Union. He was one of the delegates of his State in the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, and served in that historic body with dignity and ability. Before the bombardment of Fort Sumter, serving as volunteer aide on the staff of General Beauregard, he and Captain Stephen D. Lee bore to Major Anderson the formal demand to surrender, and again with Beauregard at Manassas he was sent to Richmond about the middle of July to present to the President for consideration the plan of campaign which