Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1194

1116 go to the front if they could not bear him off conveniently, but to leave him his flag, which he still held, and let him die there under its folds." This wound kept him at Richmond until the army was entering upon the Pennsylvania campaign, when he rejoined the division of his brother, which reached the field of Gettysburg in time to make that desperate charge on the Federal entrenchments and batteries on Cemetery hill which will ever be memorable in American history. Though they gained the Federal position, and the survivors held it for a time in a hand-to-hand fight, without support, they melted away under a terrible fire, and their marvelous valor went for naught. Remaining before the Federal army all day July 4th without attack, they began that night the famous retreat to Virginia, which, considering their condition, was the most remarkable in history. Major Pickett was next engaged in battle at New Bern, N. C., and remained with his command in that State through the winter, returning to Richmond in the spring of 1864, to participate in the battle of Cold Harbor. During the siege of Petersburg and Richmond, his division held the entrenched line between the two cities and Bermuda Hundred, until about three weeks before the evacuation, when it was relieved by General Mahone's command and ordered to operate against Sheridan. They met the latter's forces at Five Forks, and in a severe battle against overwhelming odds, met with frightful losses, being able to withdraw but a thousand men from the action. Subsequently joining in the retreat to Appomattox the command suffered severely at Sailor's Creek, and the survivors gave their parole on April 9, 1865. Major Pickett at once returned quietly to the work of a private citizen and was engaged upon the Turkey island plantation until the summer of 1868, when he went to Richmond and a few months later to Norfolk, of which city he has been a respected and prominent citizen since 1869. Here he has been occupied in trade and has served as secretary of the Business Men's association since its organization. He was married in October, 1863, to Elizabeth H., daughter of John H. Smith, in the government service at Washington. Major Pickett's fraternal connections are with the Knights Templar and Pickett-Buchanan camp, United Confederate Veterans.

Captain A. P. Pifer, of Norfolk, a distinguished educator, was born in Frederick county, Va., August 3, 1840, and is a lineal descendant of the founder of his family in America, who emigrated from Sweden to Germany, and thence to Virginia before the war of the Revolution. His father, Maj. Elijah Pifer, born 1807, died 1886, a planter's son, followed the same calling, and served his county for many years as a magistrate, for which he was peculiarly fitted by his study of law, so that none of his legal decisions were reversed during his career. Captain Pifer in his youth attended school in his native county, preparatory to entering Roanoke college, where, after five years' study, he was graduated in 1859 with the degree of A. M. Intending to follow the profession of law, he studied in that direction during the following two years, also being engaged in teaching school, until July, 1861, when he enlisted in the service of the Confederate States, as a private in Company A of the Tenth Virginia infantry. In the following month he was commissioned first lieutenant and assigned