Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1033

Rh born in Nottoway county February 5, 1812, was a farmer by occupation, a captain of militia, and died in 1865. His ancestors are from the Greenhill family of England and the Jones family of Wales. In 1834 Captain Jones married Elizabeth, daughter of Archer Dunavant, of Nottoway county, who was born in 1814 and died in 1890. Of their eight children, two sons and a daughter survive. One son, Frank Jones, served throughout the war in the Confederate army, and now resides in Dinwiddie county. The other son, Caius J. Jones, was about six years old when his parents removed to Dinwiddie county, where he was reared and given his academic education. At sixteen years of age he entered Randolph-Macon college, whence he received the degree of M. A. in June, 1861. Soon afterward he enlisted in the Dinwiddie cavalry as a private, and was subsequently promoted sergeant. In 1862, after the evacuation of Williamsburg, he served for a short time as courier for Gen A. P. Hill. Among the battles in which this gallant cavalryman was engaged were the Seven Days' fight, including Seven Pines, Fredericksburg, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, Yellow Tavern, and all the campaigns and engagements of J. E. B. Stuart's cavalry. He used up nine horses during his service, and was twice wounded, but was never captured. During the siege of Richmond he was in the saddle for sixty days in succession. After the battle of Reams' Station he was the only surviving officer of his company and commanded it until the command was recruited. Illustrating the strange fortunes of war Sergeant Jones recalls that on one occasion in 1864, he was called on to name a detail to guard at night the tent of General Wickham. He selected Corporal Frazier, but the latter having an excuse, he acted in his stead. Next day another detail was called for—a non-commissioned officer with ten men to join a detachment sent against a negro garrison. Again he detailed Frazier, and again was asked to take the duty on himself. But this time, he and Frazier being the only non-commissioned officers, he insisted that the corporal should serve, which he did and was killed, and the sergeant doubtless would have been had he not taken upon himself the service of the previous night. He was on detached duty at the time of the surrender at Appomattox and started to join the army in North Carolina, when hearing of its capitulation, he returned to Dinwiddie Court House and gave his parole. He became occupied with agricultural pursuits, and from 1869 was for ten years engaged in teaching in Norfolk county. He then engaged in tobacco manufacturing and afterward as a salesman, removed to Norfolk in 1883, and in 1888 embarked in the grocery business which he has since successfully conducted. He is a vestryman of St. Peter's P. E. church and a member of Pickett-Buchanan camp. He was married October 8, 1873, to Fannie H., daughter of the late Thomas H. Browne, of Norfolk, and descendant of Lord Willoughby, of England. They have three sons living; Junius H., Thomas A., and Reverdy H. The eldest son was appointed to the United States naval academy in 1892, but was compelled to resign his cadetship on account of ill health and then entered the Colorado school of mines. The second son graduated from the Virginia military institute, June 23, 1898, at the head of his class and received the first Jackson-Hope medal