Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/176

158 Arnold Elzey Jones, was, in his day, very prominent in the politics of Maryland, having several times represented Somerset county in the State legislature. His mother, Anne Wilson Jackson, of a wealthy Maryland family, was a lady of great culture and refinement. General Elzey was born December 18, 1816, at Elm wood, the residence of his parents, on the Manokin river, in Somerset county. He was graduated at West Point in 1837, and commissioned lieutenant of artillery in the United States army. Finding a number of officers in the army bearing his paternal [name, he adopted that of his paternal grandmother, Elzey, by which he was subsequently known. As an artillery officer he served with credit during the Seminole outbreak in Florida, and when war was declared between the United States and Mexico, he was in command of a battery at Brownsville, Tex., where he had the honor of firing the first gun of the war. From this opening gun, until the surrender of the City of Mexico, he was with the armies of Taylor and Scott, participating in nearly every battle, and was twice brevetted for gallant and meritorious conduct on the field. In 1860, with the rank of captain of artillery, he was in command of the United States arsenal at Augusta, Ga., which he surrendered with the honors of war upon the demand of superior forces soon after the fall of Fort Sumter. He then conducted his command to Washington, after which he resigned his commission and made his way to Richmond, where he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel in the Confederate service. At the first battle of Manassas, Elzey, then ranking as senior colonel in Kirby Smith's brigade, had the honor, after General Smith was wounded, of leading the successful charge, on the afternoon of the day's hard fighting, which turned the tide of battle, broke the Federal forces, and ended in a rout of the almost victorious army of McDowell. For this gallant service he was complimented by General Beauregard, who styled him "the Blucher of the field,"