Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1353

Rh was killed in battle. William S. was educated in Clifton academy, and at the Baltimore dental college, after which he practiced dentistry in Amelia county from 1858 to 1861. For several years prior to 1861 he was a member of the Amelia cavalry and with that organization entered the active military service in April, 1861. The troop was assigned to the First Virginia cavalry, Col. J. E. B. Stuart, as Company G. He participated in the first battle of Manassas, and continued in the field until compelled to retire on account of illness. Subsequently he served as a hospital steward at Seabrooke hospital, Richmond, until the capital was evacuated, when he was assigned to the same work at Danville. Upon the receipt of news of Lee's surrender he joined the army in North Carolina and was paroled at Greensboro. Returning to his home he resumed his professional practice, but in 1871 made his home at Danville, where he has since had a successful career. He is a member of Cabell-Graves camp.

Thomas W. Willcox, a successful farmer of Charles City county, was a true-blue Virginian in the days of civil war, and devoted his energies to the cause which was dear to the loyal Southerner. His father. Dr. Edward Willcox, served his country in the war of 1812. Thomas W. was born November 17, 1832, and during the war of the Confederacy served as a lieutenant in the Charles City troop, until disabled by disease, then in the conscript bureau, and is still living and engaged in agriculture. He wedded Martha Ann Claiborne, who was born April 2, 1840, in Amherst county, a daughter of Dr. William S. Claiborne, whose father was Buller Claiborne, well known as a lawyer in his day. Mrs. Willcox is descended from William Claiborne, long ago a famous character in English history. Judge Thomas H. Willcox, son of the foregoing, was born in New Glasgow, Amherst county, October 4, 1859, but was reared in Charles City county and became a student in the Virginia agricultural and mechanical college at Blacksburg, Va. After being graduated at that institution in 1877, he determined to embrace the profession of law, and after six years' study and experience in the clerk's offices of Charles City county and Norfolk, began the practice in 1884, as a partner of Thomas R. Borland, of Norfolk. This legal firm has ever since been maintained, and is eminently successful in business and of high repute in the profession. In May, 1886, Mr. Willcox was elected commonwealth's attorney, and being three times re-elected, held the position for eight years. He was elected in February, 1894, to the office of judge of the corporation court of Norfolk, but this he resigned in the following December in order to devote his time to practice as an attorney. Mr. Willcox takes an active part in social religious and fraternal life. He was married in October, 1885, to Mary C., daughter of Rev. Thomas M. Ambler, of Norfolk and they have six children: Mary A., Thomas H., Claiborne, Cary Ambler, Edward R. and Charles S.

Captain Charles U. Williams, of Richmond, who served with distinction in the army of Virginia from Harper's Ferry to Appomattox, was born in Henrico county m 1840. During the exciting events of i860 he was a student at the university of Virginia and was a member of a company of students officered entirely by graduates of the Virginia military institute. Thoroughly loyal to his State, he was prompt to act, and on the night of