Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1269

Rh that a price of $500 is set upon the volume. Later members of the family served with conspicuous gallantry in the war of the Revolution. His mother, Mary Poythress Epes, was a daughter of Francis Epes, who was a captain in the war of the Revolution, serving under a commission from Patrick Henry, and a descendant of Colonel Poythress, who is buried at Westover, on the James river. After receiving his education at private schools in his native county, Mr. Stith went to Petersburg at the age of seventeen, and secured employment with the railroad now known as the Norfolk & Western, in which he remained until April 19, 1861. He then enlisted in the Petersburg Riflemen, mustered in with the Twelfth Virginia regiment of infantry and served with that command throughout the war. Stationed at Norfolk during the Confederate occupation of that city, he witnessed the encounter of the Virginia and the Monitor. Subsequently he moved to Petersburg and Richmond, and participated in the battle of Seven Pines, where he was severely wounded and disabled for several months. Joining his regiment in front of Fredericksburg, he participated in the Virginia campaigns until after Chancellorsville, and then served in the Pennsylvania campaign, fighting at Gettysburg, and joining in the memorable retreat to Orange Court House. During 1864 he fought at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, Cold Harbor, and then went into the trenches at Petersburg. During the battle of the Crater, July 30, 1864, he participated in the Confederate charge and was seriously wounded, receiving a gunshot in the lungs, which disabled him for four months. Not discouraged, however, he returned to the ranks as soon as his health permitted and was with his company until the surrender at Appomattox. This long and gallant service ended, he returned at once to the quiet routine of peace, and soon became engaged as manager of a hotel at Petersburg, Va., where he continued successfully and gaining a widespread reputation in that line of business, until 1893, when he was called to Norfolk as manager and superintendent of the Virginia club. He maintains a membership in the A. P. Hill camp of Confederate Veterans at Petersburg.

William Epes Stith, second assistant chief of the eastern division of the United States pension department, is a native of Virginia and was a gallant soldier, among a family of soldiers, who served in her defense during the war of the Confederacy. He was born in Nottoway county in 1846, and there reared and educated. After reaching the age of sixteen years he entered the service of the Confederate States in the winter of 1862-63, in the City battalion, organized at Petersburg, and was soon afterward transferred to Company E of the Twelfth Virginia infantry regiment, with which he served in Mahone's brigade, in nearly all the fights around Petersburg and on the Bermuda line. On the retreat to Appomattox, while serving in a detail to fire the high bridge, he was captured on April 7, 1865, and being sent as a prisoner of war to Point Lookout, was not released until June 19th, although the army had been paroled but a few days after his capture. After his release he returned to his home in Nottoway county, and remained there until his removal to Petersburg, in 1870. At that city he engaged in the tobacco business, and remained there until 1879, after which he was engaged for three years in agricultural pursuits in Lunenburg county. In 1882 he made his home