Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1279

Rh give up his position. Upon regaining his health he re-entered the service and was attached to the cavalry command of Gen. M. W. Gary. Being assigned to the command of a scouting party, he continued in that capacity until the end of the war, frequently being engaged in expeditions up and down the James river, and encountering many interesting and thrilling adventures. Occasionally he was able to visit his old home in Charles City county, availing himself of the opportunity to enjoy its hospitality and rest and refresh himself and his men. On one of these occasions he found that as an aged negro woman expressed it, "De blasted yankees had been dere, stealing de turkeys." He considered those fowls as legitimate resources of the Confederacy, and made an ambush for the marauding Federals, which resulted in a desperate fight, in which he killed one of the enemy's party and put two bullets in the neck of another and was himself seriously wounded in the face and neck. At the close of the war he surrendered with Johnston's army at Greensboro, N. C., and then returned to his home, where he was engaged in farming for a few years. About the year 1873 he removed to Richmond, and for three years served upon the police force, where his personal courage and manly activity made him a valued officer. Removing to Newport News in 1883, he for several years held the position of chief of the police of that city. Since 1894 he has filled with general satisfaction the office of inspector and boarding officer at the port of Newport News. He is a good citizen, is popular socially, and is a member of the Royal Arcanum, the United Workmen, and a highly esteemed comrade of Magruder camp, United Confederate Veterans.

J. D. Tanner, of Lynchburg, identified during the Confederate war with the gallant record of the Twenty-eighth regiment Virginia infantry, is a native of Bedford county, born December 12, 1841. He entered the service in April, 1861, as a private in Company F of the Twenty-eighth regiment, and served in the first battle of Manassas in the brigade of Col. P. St. George Cocke. Subsequently the brigade was commanded by Generals Pickett and Richard B. Garnett, in Longstreet's corps, and he shared its fighting on many of the famous battlefields of the army of Northern Virginia. In the Peninsular campaign of 1862 he was shot through the body at the battle of Gaines' Mill, and received a second wound in the left leg while being carried from the field. These injuries disabled him for several months, and he was next in battle at Fredericksburg, and subsequently with Longstreet in North Carolina, fighting at Plymouth, Little Washington and New Bern. With Pickett's division in the third day's fight at Gettysburg, he received a wound in the left shoulder in the assault upon Cemetery ridge. He took part in the battle of the Wilderness, and was stationed on the Howlett line for several months, participated as acting sergeant in the charge on the enemy's works, about January 1, 1864. In the spring of 1865 be fought at Five Forks and Sailor's Creek, and was among the captured at the latter disaster. Subsequently he was held as a prisoner of war at Point Lookout for some time. Finally returning to his home he soon afterward went to Lynchburg, with a capital of fifty cents, and at first finding various employment, the energy and devotion which had characterized his military career were, in a few years, instrumental in enabling him to establish himself in business, in