Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1239

Rh military service of his State. He enlisted April 17, 1861, in a volunteer company which was assigned as Company A to the Fourth Virginia infantry. He joined his regiment, under the brigade command of Col. Thomas J. Jackson, in the lower Shenandoah valley, and thence moved to the field of Manassas, where he shared the gallant service of the Fourth. Subsequently he was assigned to the commissary service and promoted on September 11, 1861, to the rank of captain in that department. His performance of duty in this capacity was marked with such efficiency that on April 1, 1862, he was promoted major. He was with the Stonewall brigade through its entire four years' service, constantly rendering valuable and faithful co-operation in its gallant career. During the final days of the struggle he was a member of the staff of Gen. John B. Gordon, commanding the Second corps of the army. After the war closed Mr. Sexton engaged in the saddle and harness business and has met with much success. He is a member of the Presbyterian church and of the Masonic and I. O. O. F. fraternities.

Carlton Shafer, a native of Virginia, was one of the four captains who commanded the young cadets of the Virginia military institute who participated with such gallantry at the battle of New Market, in the valley of Virginia, May 15, 1864. He was born in Loudoun county, Va., in 1844. His father, Frederick W. Shafer, was born in Germany but came to Virginia very early in life. In 1860 he left home to enter the military institute at Lexington, and was a student there when the organization of troops was begun by the State. In 1861 he went into service with the cadets, at Richmond, Va., where they were drill-masters to troops preparing for active service, but was not actively engaged in the field until the battle of New Market. In this battle, rendered particularly famous by the heroic action of the cadets and their severe loss in battle, he commanded Company B of the cadet corps and did his whole duty in the glorious charge of the boys which routed the Federal forces. Subsequently he was commissioned lieutenant in the provisional army and was stationed in southwest Virginia, where he was assigned to duty in organizing and drilling recruits for the fast-thinning ranks of the Confederates. While in that region he participated in the defense of Lynchburg during the raid of Federal General Hunter upon that important point, and in the successful resistance to the Federal raid of General Burbridge's army against the salt works in Washington county, Va. At the time of the surrender he was in Fauquier county, Va., and soon afterward received his parole in Loudoun county. He returned to civil life and was engaged in school teaching about two years at Leesburg. He was then chosen professor of mathematics in Frederick college, at Frederick City, Md., and held that chair about two years, in the meantime taking up the study of law, to which he determined to turn his attention. In 1870 he was admitted to the bar at Frederick City, where he subsequently engaged in the practice with marked success until 1893. During that period he became prominent in political affairs, and was elected in 1886 to represent Frederick county in the house of delegates of Maryland. During the three succeeding terms of the legislature he served, by successive elections, as chief clerk of the house. In 1887 he was a candidate for the State senate, on the Democratic ticket, and though the county usually gives a Republican majority of six to eight hundred votes