Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1181

Rh spring of 1862 Pegram had been promoted to the position of captain and had command of a battery which was engaged in the battles around Richmond in June and July. In his report of the battle of Malvern Hill, Gen. A. R. Wright says; "Meanwhile Captain Pegram's battery was ordered up and taking position 200 yards to the left of Moorman opened a well-directed fire upon the enemy, which told with fearful effect upon them. But this chivalric commander, by the retirement of Moorman's battery was left alone to contend with the whole force of the enemy's artillery. Manfully those gallant men maintained the unequal conflict until their severe losses disabled them from using but a single piece; even then, with one single piece, they firmly held their ground and continued to pour a deadly fire upon the enemy's line until, seeing the utter hopelessness of the conflict, I ordered them to cease firing until I could get more guns in action." Captain Pegram was actively engaged at Cedar Run, Second Manassas, Harper's Ferry and Sharpsburg, at which last named battle he was for the first time wounded. He was again ready for the fray at Fredericksburg and at Chancellorsville he was in the thickest of the fight, where he commanded an artillery battalion, having now risen to the rank of major. E. P. Alexander, brigadier-general of artillery, in his report of this battle, pays a glowing tribute to "Col. Thomas H. Carter, Col. H. P. Jones, Major Mcintosh, Maj. William J. Pegram and Maj. Frank Huger, commanding battalions, and the officers and men of their commands." He adds: "To Major Pegram and Lieutenant Chamberlayne is specially due the credit of the first footing in the field on the right." When the campaign of 1864 began, Pegram had been promoted to lieutenant-colonel of artillery. Through all the battles of the Overland campaign, and around Petersburg and Richmond, Pegram was ever ready for the performance of every duty, regardless of hardship or peril. Like his gallant corps commander, A. P. Hill, he fell in the last desperate fighting near Petersburg and did not live to see the starry cross furled in defeat.

William Dorsey Pender, of Norfolk, prominent among the younger attorneys of that city, is the son of Maj.-Gen. William Dorsey Pender, of North Carolina, whose distinguished service in the Confederate States army was terminated by mortal wounds received in the second day's battle at Gettysburg, and a sketch of whose life and services appears in volume IV of this work. He was born in North Carolina, May 28, 1861, and received his academic education at Tarboro. Having determined to follow the legal profession he attended the law school of the university of Virginia during one summer, and in the fall of 1887, having passed a successful examination before the supreme court of appeals of Virginia, was licensed to practice. He made his home and the theater of his future efforts at Norfolk in 1888, and has since been actively and successfully engaged in the practice of his profession. He was married November 11, 1891, to Alice, daughter of Redden S. Williams, of Edgecombe county, N. C., and they have one child, who bears the honored name of William Dorsey Pender.

Colonel A. S. Pendleton began his military career with the first organization of Virginia forces. At the first battle of Manassas he was lieutenant and ordnance officer of the Stonewall brigade,