Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1224

1146 well fitted for capable service in the army and was eager to enlist as soon as the war seemed inevitable. On the 19th of April, 1861, he became a member of a company called the Young Guards, and remained with that organization until just before the evacuation of Norfolk, when he joined the Norfolk Light Artillery Blues. With this gallant command, forming subsequently a part of Richardson's battalion, attached to the Third army corps of the army of Northern Virginia, he participated in all its battles and campaigns. His first duties were in the land batteries in connection with the famous naval duel between the Monitor and the Virginia or Merrimac. During the bloody battle of Spottsylvania he received a severe wound from which he suffered for thirty-four years, finally being compelled, February 9, 1898, to have his leg amputated above the knee joint, an operation which was entirely successful and has resulted in the marked improvement of his health. When the armies of the Confederacy were disbanded he returned to civil life, practically penniless, but was so fortunate as to find employment in a hardware establishment at Norfolk, where beginning for very slight compensation he won by faithful application a partnership at the end of twelve months. He continued in this business until 1884, since which date he has been engaged in dealing in real estate, a business in which he has met with a marked degree of success. He has won a high standing in the community and is generally regarded as among the city's most enterprising and valuable citizens. As president of the Boys' home and vice-president of the chamber of commerce he has rendered highly appreciated services. He is a member of Free-Mason street Baptist church, is a Mason of the thirty-second degree and Knight Templar, and maintains a membership in the Pickett-Buchanan camp, United Confederate Veterans. Mr. Rogers was married May 30, 1867, to Adelaide, daughter of Seth March, formerly engaged in the manufacture of agricultural implements at Norfolk, and their home has been blessed by children, of whom four survive.

Henry C. Roper, of Petersburg, late of the Thirteenth Virginia cavalry, is a native of the city where he now resides, and prior to the war was educated at the Petersburg classical institute. Leaving school in 1862, he enlisted in the Petersburg company of cavalry which was assigned to the Thirteenth Virginia cavalry regiment, and subsequently participated in all the campaigns and battles of this regiment and W. H. F. Lee's brigade in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, until he was captured in the fight at Dunn's Farm. From that time until the close of the war he was held as a prisoner of war at Point Lookout, Md. He volunteered as a private, and at the close of his service was in the rank of second sergeant, having refused further promotion. Emmet Roper, a brother, who previous to 1861 had been graduated with the first honors of his class at Hampden-Sidney college, entered the Confederate service at the outbreak of the war and was on duty in the medical department until the close. After the war Mr. Roper was in the tobacco and wholesale grocery business with his father, until the death of the latter, and since then he has given his attention solely to the tobacco trade, exporting extensively to Europe and Africa.