Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1247

Rh for several weeks experienced the discomforts of prison life at Point Lookout. Since then he has been engaged in business at Norfolk, and enjoys the success which follows a life of energy and staunch resolution.

Major William E. Simons, of Richmond, though a native of Baltimore, Md., born in 1840, has resided at the Virginia capital since infancy, when his parents removed to Richmond. He was educated at the latter city, and, on April 21, 1861, entered the military service of the State as a private in the Richmond Howitzers. He served with that gallant command of artillery at the battles of First Manassas and Ball's Bluff, and until the expiration of a year, when much to his distaste he was detailed for special duty at Richmond. Chafing against this detention from the field until he could no longer endure it, he slipped away from Richmond early in 1863, and joined McNiell's cavalry at Moorefield, W. Va. With this command he enjoyed active service for six or seven months, until the authorities discovered his youth and he was sent back to Richmond. He then enlisted in the Third regiment of local defense troops, and soon found active service in and about Richmond. He organized a company, of which he was commissioned captain, which with other organizations formed a battalion of Custis Lee's brigade, and participated in the defense of Richmond and the retreat toward Appomattox. During his service in West Virginia he took part in the battle of Moorefield, and after returning to Richmond he fought through the desperate encounter at Cold Harbor with the Federal army under Grant. During the retreat in April, 1865, he was captured, but being soon afterward released, made his way to Johnson's army, reaching that command just as it was surrendered. Still determined to attach himself to the last Confederate holding out, he started to join the army of Kirby Smith, beyond the Mississippi, and had gone as far as South Georgia when he became convinced that the war was over. Then he turned back and walked the entire seven hundred miles to his home. In 1870 he engaged in the manufacture of blank books, and has since that time successfully conducted a manufacturing establishment of that nature. He has also found opportunity to render the State efficient service in her military forces since the close of the great war. Upon the reorganization of the Richmond Howitzers in 1874 he was among those enrolled, and chosen first lieutenant of the command. He served in this capacity until 1885 when he was commissioned major of the First battalion of artillery of Virginia, including all the artillery of the State. At the time of the agitation at the Pocahontas coal mines in 1895, when the town of Pocahontas was occupied by several thousand strikers from West Virginia, bent upon stopping the working of the Virginia mines, by threats or violence, Major Simons was selected as a cool and sagacious commander to take a force of artillery and infantry to the scene of disturbance. He remained at that point in charge of the military forces from May 3d to August 2d, and such were his tact and good management that the strike was one of the few of such magnitude that have been brought to a close without a single blow being struck, a drop of blood shed, or any property destroyed. Neither was a single citizen deprived of his right to work or not to work. Major Simons maintains a membership in R. E. Lee camp No. 1, Confederate Veterans.