Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1068

1002 valley by the forces under Gen. J. E. Johnston, served under Col. J. E. B. Stuart in the engagements which took place after the advance of Patterson from Pennsylvania. Going thence to Manassas, he participated in the famous battle of July 21, 1861. He served on picket duty on the Confederate line in northeast Virginia during the remainder of that season and, at the reorganization in the following spring, was elected captain of his company. From that time till Appomattox he was in all the cavalry fights and campaigns under Stuart, Hampton and Fitz Lee. He was wounded at Shepherdstown, in the arm, again in the eye at Brandy Station, was hit in the face by a 42-caliber pistol ball, which he carried in his head until July, 1897, and was again wounded at Jack's shop, in the hip. At Appomattox he succeeded in saving his regiment from capture, and rode away from the field with Rosser. After remaining at home for some time following the surrender, he went to Lynchburg, in 1866, and embarked in business there in 1867. Three years later he returned to Abingdon, where he has since resided. During the administration of President Cleveland he held the office of postmaster.

Captain Hardin Beverly Littlepage, who has for the past decade been engaged officially at Washington in the collection of the naval records of the war of the Confederacy, was born, March 8, 1841, in King William county, Va. He was reared in that county and educated at the Rumford academy, preparatory to his entering the United States naval academy at Annapolis, where he was enrolled in 1858. He would have been graduated at this institution in June, 1861, but resigned on April 19th, immediately after the secession of Virginia, and tendered his services to the State. He was appointed to the rank of midshipman, by Governor Letcher, and assigned to duty at Fort Norfolk, and ten days later to command of the battery at Town Point, opposite Newport News. This command continued for eight months, when he was assigned to the Virginia, or Merrimac, with the rank of midshipman. He was identified with the entire career of this famous naval battery and participated in the encounters in Hampton Roads, receiving promotion, after the fight with the Monitor, to the rank of master. After the destruction of the Virginia by her own crew, he served at Drewry's bluff in the repulse of the attempted landing from the Federal fleet, one of the most important Confederate victories of that period. In the fall of 1862 he was promoted second lieutenant, and, with ten of the Virginia's crew, served on the gunboat Chattahoochee, in Florida waters until the following December. He was then with the ironclad Atlanta at Port Jackson, in the Savannah river, until May, 1863, when he was ordered to report to Capt. M. F. Maury, at London. He remained abroad until September, 1864, attached, first to one of the rams intended for Confederate service and later to the Texas, but his cruise with that vessel was prevented by her capture as she was about to sail. Returning, he ran the blockade from Halifax to Wilmington, N. C., and joined the new Virginia, a powerful ironclad, modeled after the first of that name, as first lieutenant. This vessel served as the flagship of the James river squadron, but there was no opportunity for effective service, and, when the naval forces were subsequently organized for land duty, he was appointed captain