Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1127

Rh to Hope Alice, daughter of William T. Davis, president of the Southern female college. Their children living are Olive Leigh, wife of Rev. E. T. Dadmun; Capt. R. B., professor in the Virginia military institute; Hope Alice; Robert M., principal of the military school at Martinsville; Richard D., George W.

William T. Morgan, a well-known business man of Baltimore, is a native of Virginia, and served during the war of the Confederacy in the army of Northern Virginia. He was born at Petersburg in 1840, and was there reared and educated, and in that city passed the first years of his manhood. In the spring of 1862 when it appeared that in spite of the great victory at Manassas the preceding summer the war was not yet over, and some hard fighting was in prospect, he enlisted in the gallant Twelfth Virginia infantry, then stationed at Norfolk, becoming a private in Company E, known before the war as the "Petersburg Rifles." Upon the evacuation of Norfolk by the Confederate troops he served in the rear guard on the march to join the army in front of Richmond. At Drewry's Bluff he served as a sharpshooter and in the two days' battle of Seven Pines he participated in the action of his regiment as a part of Mahone's brigade of General Huger's division. Here he was wounded in the foot by a bayonet thrust accidentally given by a comrade, which disabled him for six weeks. McClellan having been driven back, the army marched against Pope at Manassas, and in the campaign in that region in the summer of 1862 Mr. Morgan participated with his regiment in Mahone's brigade of Anderson's division of Longstreet's corps. Thence the army moved into Maryland, and he took part in the battle at South Mountain, or Boonsboro, where he was badly wounded in the right hand and right leg, the leg being broken near the hip by a minie ball. He fell into the hands of the enemy, but was immediately paroled at the request of Maryland friends, and tenderly cared for until sufficiently recovered to return South, when he surrendered his parole to the Federal authorities at Baltimore and was exchanged. Though disabled for duty until December, 1863, he was able to be at the battle of Gettysburg, and under fire, though not actively participating. In December, 1863, he was detailed for duty in the medical department, and attached to the headquarters of Gen. Robert E. Lee, as custodian of the official papers of that department, and lay assistant to the medical director, A. N. V. He served in this capacity until the close of the war. During the siege of Petersburg he made application for a commission in the regular army of the Confederate States, and was accepted and appointed lieutenant, but in the turmoil of succeeding events the commission never reached him. He was with the army in the retreat, was under fire at Sailor's Creek and Appomattox, and surrendered and was paroled with the remnant of the army of Northern Virginia. Returning then to Petersburg he soon became engaged in the commission business, rising to the position of cashier in the house by which he was employed. Then he served three years as assistant cashier of the Planters' and Mechanics' bank, of Petersburg, resigning that position in 1874 to remove to Baltimore, where he entered the grain and commission business, which he conducted until 1883, then turning his attention to mining investments. The ancestry of Lieutenant Morgan, on the maternal side, included patriots who