Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/775

Rh estate business. He is a member of Pickett-Buchanan camp, and of the orders of Masons and Knights of Pythias. He is a communicant of St. Peter's Episcopal church. He was married January l6, 1872, to Mary Granby Scott, who died May 19, 1897, leaving three children, Mary Armitt, Alan Leonidas, Frank Clifton.

C. B. Beale, of Norfolk, a gallant soldier of the Thirty-first North Carolina infantry, was born in Hertford county, N. C., June 10, 1843. His father, William Beale, born in the same county January 1, 1800, dying in 1861, was a very successful farmer, owning two plantations and a large number of slaves. His mother, whose maiden name was Martha Ann Britt, born February 8, 1808, dying in 1886, was a descendant of the excellent Goodman family, of Virginia. Young Beale was educated in Buckhorn academy of his native township, until he had reached the age of seventeen years, when he enlisted, in April, 1861, as a private in the Hertford Light Infantry. Shortly afterward he was sent home on a sick furlough, and during his absence the company was captured by General Butler at Cape Hatteras. He then enlisted in the Hertford County Guards, Company G of the Thirty-first North Carolina regiment of infantry, in which he served during the remainder of the war, being promoted to fifth sergeant of his company and sergeant major of his regiment. At Roanoke island, February 12, 1862, he was captured with his entire command and paroled for six months, after which the regiment was reorganized at Raleigh in September. He participated in the fight at White Hall, N. C., where he was wounded in the right shoulder, was engaged against a colored division under General Terry on James island, August 16, 1863, and two days later served in the defense of Battery Wagner, on Morris island, against the attack of the Federals, which lasted from sunrise until 1 o'clock of the following morning, and ended in their repulse with a loss of 2,000. He assisted in the capture of the Federal gunboat Smith Briggs, at Smithfield, Va., and was next with the gallant command which fought its way through Butler's lines between Richmond and Petersburg, May 12, 1864, and joined the Confederate force at Drewry's bluff, fighting there on May 16th, and at Bermuda Hundreds on the day following. On May 31st he fought against Grant at Cold Harbor, his regiment losing 110 men in ten minutes, and took part in the repulse of the Federals next day. On the following day, while attempting to dislodge the enemy who had occupied a gap between Early and Hoke, the attacking Confederates lost about half their men, and Sergeant Major Beale was wounded in the left temple. He declined an offered furlough, and was so anxious to rejoin his regiment that the hospital officials sent him to the command, on the Petersburg lines, in an ambulance, June 16th, and during that night and the next day he took part in the repulse of the Federal assault. Though now in a serious physical condition he stayed in the trenches, and fought again August 19th, in defense of the Weldon railroad. He next participated in the attempt to recapture Fort Harrison, where the regiment went in with 202 men, the remaining 20 being detailed as an ambulance corps, and had 200 men killed or wounded, he finding himself in the fiercest engagement he had yet encountered. In the early part of the fight one of the bones of his right leg was shattered, but finding he could yet walk he pressed on until within forty yards of the fort, when his left leg was struck above the knee