Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1260

1180 after which he returned to Richmond and became interested in the firm of Taliaferro & Co., commission merchants, an association which he continued for twenty-four years. Since 1892 he has been occupied with various business enterprises and is now general manager of the Virginia abstract company, of Richmond. He maintains an active fellowship with his former comrades and is a member and past commander of R. E. Lee camp, Confederate Veterans, a member and ex-president of the Howitzer association, and is past grand commander of the grand camp of Virginia, over which he presided at two sessions.

Williamson Smith, a worthy Confederate veteran who at present holds the position of city sergeant of Portsmouth, was born at that city February 13, 1843. His parents, Wilson and Lydia (Wakefield) Smith, both died while he was yet an infant, and he was reared by his mother's sister, Mary Ann Collins, wife of William Collins, of Portsmouth. On April 17, 1861, he enlisted in the service of Virginia as a private in Company A of the Sixteenth Virginia regiment of infantry. His regiment, which was assigned to Mahone's brigade, served until after Chancellorsville in Longstreet's corps, and subsequently in the corps of A. P. Hill, and throughout in the division of General Anderson; and its gallant actions during all the campaigns of the army of Northern Virginia were shared by Private Smith. He was a member of the sharpshooters of Mahone's brigade, well remembered for their effective service. Among the important battles in which he participated were: Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor, Reams' Station, the Crater and Five Forks. He was captured by the enemy at Chancellorsville, but fortunately was held as a prisoner only eleven days. At Five Forks, in 1865, he was captured a second time, and on this occasion was held at Point Lookout until June 20, 1865. After his release he returned to Portsmouth, where he has been engaged mainly during the subsequent years as a painter, and for five years in the retail grocery trade. In May, 1890, he was elected city sergeant, an office to which he was re-elected in 1892, 1894, 1896 and 1898. He is a charter member of Stonewall camp, United Confederate Veterans, is fraternally connected with the Odd Fellows, Royal Arcanum and Heptasophs, and holds a membership in the Central Methodist church. He was married November 26, 1868, to Roselia Reiger, who died in September, 1887, leaving six children. He was married October 27, 1892, to Miss Elizabeth Goodson.

William A. Smoot, of Alexandria, for many years prominent among the United Confederate Veterans of Virginia, was in 1895 elected major-general and grand commander of the organization for that State. He is a native Virginian, born at Alexandria August 30, 1840, where he was reared and educated, and has always had his home except during the war. When it was decided in the spring of 1861 that Virginia should ally her fortunes with the sister States of the South, he was one of the foremost in urging and approving of that step, and was determined to go into the field if necessary to defend the action of the commonwealth. Though he had nearly reached his majority his health was not robust, so