Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1355

Rh aloft the colors of his regiment; William Wilson, of Company G, Sixteenth infantry, was killed at Malvern Hill; and Charles Consolvo, of Grimes' battery, who gave up his life at Sharpsburg.

John J. Williams, of Winchester, well known in the valley as an attorney, was distinguished during the war of the Confederacy as a soldier, and during the period subsequent has taken a leading part in the organizations of the survivors of the army. He was born at Winchester, Va., June 8, 1842, the son of Philip and Mary L. L. (Dunbar) Williams. Reared and educated at his native town, he was about to undertake a university course when Virginia called out her young men to battle. On July 16, 1861, he enlisted in the Rockbridge artillery, and a few days later was engaged in battle at Manassas. He participated in the subsequent service of this famous battery until after the battle of Sharpsburg, when an injury to his ankle forced him to obtain a transfer to Chew's battery of horse artillery. In April, 1864, he was transferred to Company E of the Eleventh Virginia cavalry, with which he served until Appomattox. His service in these commands was most worthy, and his gallantry in more than forty skirmishes and battles in which he took part was recognized near the close of the war by promotion to lieutenant. His commission never reached him, however, owing to the termination of hostilities. Returning home after the surrender, he resumed his studies and entered the office of Judge Richard Parker, where he prepared for the practice of law. Soon embarking at Winchester in this profession, he has since followed it with notable success. His professional standing has been attested by his election as vice-president of the Virginia bar association. As a public-spirited citizen he has had an active participation in various local enterprises. For three years, including the Yorktown encampment, he served as captain of the Winchester light infantry. He has held the position of president of the Shenandoah valley agricultural association two years, and has twice been elected mayor of Winchester. He is one of the early members of the Turner Ashby camp, United Confederate Veterans, of which he has acted as commander for five terms. He is also vice-president of the Rockbridge artillery association, and becoming grand commander of the grand camp of Confederate Veterans of Virginia, for the unexpired term ending in October, 1888, was re-elected for the annual term next thereafter. Captain Williams came out of the war ready to join hands with his former foe in the cordial support of the common country as established by the arbitrament of arms, but he still holds in honor the cause for which he fought and his comrades who fought with him. His sentiments were well expressed in an address on a Memorial day at Charlestown, W. Va.: "Let England's nobility boast of Norman blood and of names on the roll of Battle Abbey. The boy who can say of his father, he was with Lee at Appomattox, has a patent of nobility that no herald's college can match, and for coat of arms can point to the ragged gray jacket and the battered saber, though they grace but a cottage wall, and the form that wore and the hand that grasped them were of the humbler ones of earth."

Colonel Lewis B. Williams was, before the civil war, a rising lawyer of Orange Court House, and when Virginia called her sons to arms he promptly obeyed her command and entered the