Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1241

Rh island on garrison duty and given charge of a battery of heavy guns. In September, 1861, Private Sharp was promoted second lieutenant in the provisional army, and assigned to duty as quartermaster and commissary of the brigade at Craney island. A few days later he was further promoted to the rank of captain and assistant quartermaster and commissary in the Confederate States army. But this position was not to his taste, and he tendered his resignation in favor of a friend who was married, and sought an opportunity for service in some other line of duty. Going to Richmond he there united with some ex-cadets of the Virginia military institute and others in the organization of the celebrated Otey battery, with whose gallant career he was thereafter associated until the close of the war. While on the lines before Petersburg, after the battle of the Crater, he was detailed by Gen. E. P. Alexander, chief of artillery of the First army corps, as personal courier at his headquarters, where he remained without the loss of a day in the performance of his duties until the surrender at Appomattox. For many years after the close of the war Captain Sharp was occupied as a planter in North Carolina, where he still holds extensive agricultural interests, and while there he was married December 19, 1866, to Sophia Hunter, of Lincoln county. Their home has been blessed with eight children. Mrs. Sharp is the daughter of Dr. Cyrus L. Hunter, author of Revolutionary Sketches of Western North Carolina, and granddaughter of Gen. Peter Forney, of North Carolina, and Rev. Humphrey Hunter, who served under Light Horse Harry Lee in the Continental army. Her two brothers were both killed in the war of the Confederacy. In 1882 Captain Sharp first became associated with the railroad company with which he has since been connected, and beginning as a bookkeeper in the treasury department at Wilmington, N. C., he has, through several promotions, reached the position of secretary and treasurer of the Air Line system. Since his election to this office in 1893 he has resided at Portsmouth, where the general offices are located. He maintains membership in the Pickett-Buchanan camp of Norfolk, and the Otey battery association of Richmond.

Captain J. P. Sheffey, of Marion, judge of the circuit court of Smyth county, participated in the notable Confederate record of the Smyth Dragoons, a cavalry company from that county, which became Company A, Eighth Virginia cavalry. He enlisted in this company in May, 1861, was commissioned second lieutenant, and while the command was in camp at Fort Jackson, Wytheville, was promoted first lieutenant. At the reorganization in 1862 he was elected captain, the rank in which he served during the remainder of the war. He served under General Floyd in West Virginia, and subsequently in the brigades of A. G. Jenkins, William E. Jones and Bradley T. Johnson. He participated in the battle of Cloyd's Mountain as well as many minor engagements, and took part in the Maryland campaign against Washington. In August, 1864, he was taken prisoner at Moorefield, W. Va., and was imprisoned at Camp Chase, Ohio, until February, 1865. Then returning to his command, he was at Appomattox with General Munford, but with his comrades escaped the surrender. Since the war he has been active in his profession as a lawyer, sat in the Virginia house of delegates in the session of 1893-94, and was elected to the bench in 1895.