Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1243

Rh the three days of fighting and waiting in line of battle which followed. He fought at Chancellorsville, at Gettysburg was on the main picket line during the three days' battle, on the retreat fought at Williamsport, took part in the Bristoe campaign, and in the spring of 1864 shared the service of his command at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor, and the frequent fighting on the Petersburg lines, including the battle of the Crater, where most of his company were killed or wounded, and Reams' Station. His active service in the field was not ended until he surrendered at Appomattox. Though a private until the close of the war, he had served as sergeant-major and adjutant of his regiment. Returning to Suffolk he served for sixteen years as agent for the Norfolk & Western railroad under his old commander, General Mahone, and since then has been agent for the central office of the Southern express company. He is sergeant-major of Tom Smith camp, Confederate veterans, and greatly values the comradeship of that order. In January, 1867, he was married to Carrie M. Hall, daughter of Thomas Hall, sheriff of Isle of Wight county, and they have four children: Annie, wife of John B. Booth, Oxford, N. C.; Carrie J., wife of F. G. Whaley, Greenville, N. C.; James T., of Suffolk, and Frederick M., of Norfolk.

John Emerson Shields, a native of Norfolk, Va., was connected with the war department at Richmond throughout the war of the Confederacy. While in this service he made a trip to Norfolk, arriving at that place on the day of the evacuation, and, not being able to return to Richmond, was forced to go to Washington, which ended his service for the cause of the Confederacy. Subsequently he followed the career of a merchant at Norfolk until his death in 1889. His brother, Capt. Hamilton Shields, was graduated at the National military academy at West Point in the class of Gen. George B. McClellan, and served with distinction in the war with Mexico. At the breaking out of the war he had a position on the staff of General Wool, in the United States regular army, but resigning his commission on the opening of hostilities, he became an object of suspicion, was arrested and imprisoned, but was afterward released. Their father, William C. Shields, a native of Philadelphia, served in the United States navy during the war of 1812, and afterward founded the Norfolk Beacon, an influential Whig journal, of ante-bellum days, and continued its publication until his death in 1855. This ancestor was the son of John Shields, who emigrated from Scotland to Philadelphia. John Emerson Shields married Mary Frances Ridley, a lady of English descent, and daughter of the late John Ridley, a native of Southampton county, who followed his profession of civil engineering for the greater part of his life at Norfolk, serving both as city engineer and city treasurer. Leroy H. Shields, a son of this union, was born at Norfolk, May 18, 1854, and after receiving his education in private schools of the city, entered upon a business career, first as a clerk and later as a traveling salesman. From 1881 to 1884 he was connected with the wholesale shoe business, and at the latter date retired from trade to become interested in various real estate enterprises throughout the State, some of which were of a very extensive scope. In the fall of 1885 he was elected to the legislature of the State, a position he resigned in the