Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1195

Rh to the position of adjutant-general of Meem's brigade, in which capacity he served until March, 1862. After that date he was upon detached duty and served in various capacities until August, when he received a commission as captain of cavalry and given command of Company A of the Thirty-ninth battalion of Virginia cavalry, generally known as General Lee's bodyguard. With this command, attached to the army headquarters, he served until the close of the war. When peace was restored he resumed his legal studies, and in a short time was admitted to the bar at Woodstock, Va., where he engaged in the practice for two years. Then, feeling a greater inclination toward labor in the educational field, he accepted the chair of ancient languages at Newberry college, South Carolina. After two years in this professorship he was elected principal of the Newberry female academy, where, for seventeen years he did efficient service, increasing the attendance from forty-two to one hundred and thirty, and graduating during this period a large number of young women, among whom are some of the most distinguished women of the South today. Resigning this position in 1885 on account of failing health, he gave his attention to life insurance until in May, 1895, he was called to the principalship of the Norfolk college for young ladies, which he has since successfully conducted. The institution has an attendance of two hundred students and occupies a high rank among the many excellent Southern schools for young women. Captain Pifer has naturally taken no prominent part in other public affairs since beginning his career as an educator, but during 1864, while he was yet in the field, he was elected to the Virginia legislature. His military duties and the subsequent loss of the capital, prevented his service as a legislator. He is a member of the Presbyterian church, and is connected with the Masonic order, the order of the Golden Cross and the Essenes. He was married in 1870 to Lucy A. Fair, of Selma, Ala., a daughter of Dr. Drewry Fair, a native of South Carolina, who removed to Selma in his youth and became a noted physician. She is a descendant of Governor Spottiswood. Her maternal grandfather was William Aylett, a Virginian who went to Tennessee as a land commissioner for the United States and subsequently located in Alabama. He was a lineal descendant of Sir Benjamin Aylett, who was imprisoned in London tower for adherence to Charles I., and whose son settled in King William county, Va. Captain Pifer and wife have one son, now a student in William and Mary college.

Charles W. Daughtrey, a brave son of Virginia, who answered her call for men in 1861, was born in Suffolk, in 1844. He spent his boyhood days in that city and received his education at a preparatory school in Albemarle county. At the outbreak of the war he enlisted in Company A, Sixteenth Virginia regiment, under Capt. T. W. Smith, and served with that command during the war. He took part in all of the engagements of his regiment until the surrender and was at Appomattox at the time of that event. Subsequently he went to Williamston, N. C., and engaged as a clerk in a mercantile establishment. He died in that city in 1866. J. D. Daughtrey, of Suffolk, Va., a brother of the foregoing, throughout the war was in the service of the Confederate government at Richmond. He was born in Nansemond county, in 1842, the son of