Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1222

1144 as engineer officer in W. H. F. Lee's division. He is commended in the reports of General Stuart for ability and devotion. Among the battles in which Lieutenant Robertson participated were Chancellorsville, Brandy Station, Gettysburg, Malvern Hill, Petersburg, the Cattle Raid, Five Forks, and the fighting of the last retreat. He entered the military service on April 16, 1861, and returned home on April 17, 1865, four years and a day being devoted to the cause of the Confederacy. It is an interesting fact that Lieutenant Robertson is of the most ancient lineage in Virginia, being descended from the marriage of the Princess Pocahontas to John Rolfe. A valuable history of Pocahontas and her descendants has been prepared by his father.

Leigh Robinson, a veteran of the artillery of the army of Northern Virginia, was born at Richmond, Va., February 26, 1840. He was reared at that city until his eighteenth year, when he removed with his family to Washington, D. C. His education was completed at the university of Virginia, where he was enrolled as a student at the time of the beginning of the war of 1861-65. In the winter of 1862 he entered the service of his native State and of the Confederacy as a private in the Second Howitzers, of Richmond. With this famous command and the First Howitzers, to which he was transferred in March, 1864, he served throughout the remainder of the war. His record embraces service with the artillery at Yorktown, Williamsburg, Seven Pines, the Seven Days' battles of the Peninsular campaign, after which he was disabled by illness until after the Northern campaign and the battle of Sharpsburg. Rejoining the army on its return to Virginia he fought at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and in 1863 participated in the Pennsylvania campaign and the second and third days' battles at Gettysburg, and at Mine Run in Virginia. In 1864 he fought through the Wilderness and Spottsylvania battles, and thence to the James river, and after that on the Petersburg lines, supporting Pickett's division, near Port Walthall, at the Dunn house. On the retreat he participated in his last engagement—against the enemy's cavalry—on the day before the surrender at Appomattox. In May he was paroled at Burk's Station, Va., and not long afterward he made his home at the city of Washington, where he has since resided. Since 1872 he has been engaged in the practice of law, and has attained a marked degree of success in that profession.

William Lavaille Robinson, M. D., a distinguished physician of Danville, Va., was born in Cumberland county, February 14, 1846, the son of Dr. Thomas Lavaille Robinson, a native of Chesterfield county. The latter, his father, and two brothers, were members of the medical profession. The mother of Dr. Robinson was Martha Isbell, a native of Cumberland county. He entered the university of Virginia in the fall of 1862, but soon embraced an opportunity to leave his books, and enlisted in November as a private in Company G of the Third Virginia cavalry. With this command he participated in the battles of Stevensburg, Robison River, Brandy Station, Second Manassas, Culpeper Court House, Buckland, Warrenton, Hawe's Shop, Spottsylvania Court House, and many other cavalry engagements. Fortunately he was never wounded, though in the hot fight at Stevensburg his hat brim was carried away by a piece of shell, his bridle rein cut in two, and his blanket riddled. At