Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1216

1138. As the crisis of 1861 approached he determined to cast his lot with the State of Virginia, and returning to Washington in April, 1861, he enlisted at Alexandria in the Washington volunteers, an organization which was mustered into the service of Virginia, the company of which he was a member becoming Company E, First regiment Virginia volunteer infantry. He served as a private in this regiment from May 1 to July 18, 1861, when he was wounded in the right thigh at the fight at Blackburn's Ford. The injury was a very serious one and incapacitated him for duty of any kind for about nine months, a period which was passed in the hospitals at Richmond and Farmville, Va. On recovering sufficiently for office work, he entered the office of Adjutant-General Melton, under Gen. Gustavus Smith, and a year later was transferred to the commissary-general's office under Maj. Seth B. French. He continued in the latter position until the evacuation of Richmond, when he joined in the movement to Lynchburg, where he was paroled. The journey back to Richmond he made on foot, and thence he returned to his Washington home a week later. Since that time he has resided at the capital city. From 1868 to 1888 he was one of the stenographers of the United States Senate. He maintains a membership in the Washington association of Confederate veterans. Joseph C. Reily, an elder brother of the above, resided in Maryland at the beginning of the war, and was also a member for a time of Company E, First Virginia regiment, and later was with the Marylanders under Jackson. While serving in Company E he was in the engagements at Blackburn's Ford and the First Manassas. While in the Maryland line he was in most of the engagements of his command until a short time before his death, which occurred in April, 1864. He was also a soldier in the war with Mexico.

Colonel Charles Richardson, a distinguished Confederate veteran residing at Fredericksburg, entered the service in April, 1861, with the commission of second lieutenant of artillery, regular army, and was assigned to duty with General Holmes, commanding the department of the Aquia. He took charge of and drilled the Fredericksburg artillery, and was then assigned to the duty of drilling Cocke's Fluvanna, Dance's Powhatan, and Coleman's Hanover batteries stationed near Richmond. Accompanying these batteries to Manassas he was promoted to adjutant of the corps of artillery, army of Northern Virginia, and just before the movement to the peninsula received the rank of major of artillery. The day following the battle of Williamsburg he was put in command of the battalion attached to the division of J. R. Jones, and in May, 1862, in command on the heights overlooking the Chickahominy river he covered the advance of Hill and Longstreet against Mechanicsville, receiving orders directly from General Lee. He moved with his battalion to the field of Second Manassas with D. H. Hill's division, and at Leesburg where the army was about to enter Maryland for the Sharpsburg campaign, he was put in command of all the artillery left behind, in all thirteen batteries, which with about 2,500 infantry, he moved to Winchester. In November, 1862, he was appointed chief of artillery of R. H. Anderson's division, his command including the Donaldsonville battery. Captain Maurrin; Norfolk Blues, Captain Grandy; Halifax battery,