Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1263

Rh childhood. At the latter city he received his education and business training, and he is now one of its most enterprising and aggressive business men. As senior member of the firm of T. S. Southgate & Co., brokers in flour, grain, provisions, etc., he does an extensive business, and represents exclusively in Southern markets some of the leading importers, millers, packers and manufacturers of the United States. The house has a reputation for honorable dealing that is unsurpassed and enjoys intimate relations with the entire jobbing trade of the city. Mr. Southgate has been connected with the business life of this flourishing city since the age of fifteen years, and established his commission business in 1892. He is also an extensive investor in real estate, is director of the Bank of Commerce, and president of the Young Men's Christian association.

J. A. Speight, D. D., of Norfolk, editor of the "Atlantic Baptist," was a splendid Confederate soldier from 1861 to 1865. He is a native of North Carolina, where his family has been prominent since colonial times. He was born in Gates county in 1840, the son of Rev. Henry Speight, a distinguished Baptist minister, and his wife, Olivia Pruden, daughter of John Pruden, a North Carolina planter. His great-grandfather, Jeremiah Speight, was a brother of Senator Speight, and a cousin of Governor Speight, both prominent in the history of the State. At the age of twenty-one Dr. Speight entered heartily into the cause of the Confederate States, and enlisted in Company B of the Fifth North Carolina regiment, which served with gallantry in the campaigns of the army of Northern Virginia. He participated in the first battle of Manassas, then at Williamsburg in 1862, and the succeeding Seven Days' battles before Richmond, followed by the northward campaign in which he was engaged at the second battle of Manassas, South Mountain and Sharpsburg. He participated in the bloody encounters at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and in the Pennsylvania campaign which followed, doing the duty of a brave soldier at Gettysburg until he was captured by the enemy. After this he was confined at Fort Delaware and Point Lookout during the winter of 1863-64, but on being exchanged he rejoined his command in time to participate in the desperate struggle at Spottsylvania Court House. He fought at Cold Harbor soon afterward, and was with Early in his Valley campaign until wounded and captured at Winchester in September, 1864. He was again confined at Point Lookout and held there until the surrender of the army, when he was permitted to return to his home in North Carolina. Soon afterward, having decided to enter the ministry, he pursued a course of theological study at the Columbian university at Washington, D. C., and was graduated in 1871. He immediately entered the ministry of the Baptist church and served in succession at Gatesville, Kempsville, Suffolk and Petersburg, afterward acting as agent for the Wake Forest college, North Carolina. Subsequently he began a career as a religious editor in which he has been notably distinguished. At first associate editor of the "Biblical Recorder," at Raleigh, N. C., he next held the editorship of the Asheville (N. C.) "Baptist," and on April 4, 1894, established the "Atlantic Baptist" at Norfolk, an influential weekly journal of which he has charge at the present time. He has been a liberal contributor to the religious press of