Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1133

Rh with which he was connected as cashier and assistant business manager during the following four years. Disposing of his stock in the paper, he served as physician to the poor for a term of three years. He is now editing the official organ of a prominent fraternal organization. He maintains a membership in the Washington camp of Confederate Veterans.

James M. Mullen, judge of the hustings court at Petersburg, Va., is a native of Pasquotank, N. C., born September 10, 1845. He was educated in the Hertford male academy in the county of Perquimans, but when a few months past his sixteenth year he left his studies and enlisted, in February, 1862, in the Confederate cause. He became a private in the Virginia battery of Capt. S. Taylor Martin, of Maj. Francis S. Boggs' battalion of light artillery. In October, 1863, he was transferred to the North Carolina battery of Capt. L. H. Webb, in the same battalion, in which he served until the close of the war. In his address upon the "Last Days of Johnston's Army," which has attracted much attention on account of its faithful portraiture of the final days of the Confederacy, he has described his service as one in which "the lines were cast in pleasant places." "The running away," he says, "was not of our own choosing, for the boys of our battery would have had it otherwise, and we did not relish the paternal regard of the powers that were in our behalf. It did seem, however, that the authorities studiously avoided exposing us to danger and kept the battery continuously on the move, so as to shield it from the enemy's bullets." In 1866 Mr. Mullen was appointed register of deeds for Perquimans county, and during the two years he held this office he prepared himself for the practice of law, to which he was admitted in January, 1869. From that date until July, 1886, he was engaged in professional work in Halifax county and, in 1885-86, he represented his county in the State senate and held the honorable position of trustee of the State university. Removing to Petersburg in 1886 he speedily was recognized as a lawyer of deep learning and forceful as a pleader at the bar. He was elected attorney for the commonwealth for the city of Petersburg, and, taking office, July, 1888, was retained in that position by popular vote until, in September, 1894, he was appointed by Governor O'Ferrall judge of the hustings court of the city, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Judge D. M. Bennett. Subsequently the legislature confirmed this action by electing him for the term which will expire January 1, 1901.

Robert Beverly Munford, a well-known municipal official of Richmond, was born and reared in Hanover county, Va., a descendant of a family which has long resided in the State and has been honorably represented in its civil and military service. His grandfather, William Munford, author of a translation of Homer's Iliad, born August 15, 1775, died June 21, 1825, was clerk of the house of delegates at the time of his death, and was succeeded by his son, George Wythe Munford, who held that place for a considerable period and then became secretary of the commonwealth until the evacuation of Richmond. His great-grandfather, Robert Munford, served in the war of the Revolution with the rank of colonel. In 1843 young Munford was orphaned by the death of his father, Dr. Robert Munford, who lost his life by yellow fever in Cuba, at the age of twenty-eight years. When he had reached the age of fifteen years his home