Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/788

732 civil engineer at Lynchburg, and thence removed in 1868 to Washington, where he has resided since that time.

Charles Minor Blackford, a prominent attorney of Lynchburg, Va., was born at Fredericksburg, October 17, 1833. At the age of fifteen years he came to Lynchburg, which has since been his home, and thence attended the law school of the university of Virginia, the training school of many eminent jurists. He was graduated at this institution in 1855 and then embarked in the profession at Lynchburg. In April, 1861, he abandoned a lucrative business to enlist in the Confederate service, and became the first lieutenant of Company B of the Second Virginia cavalry. In this rank he served until August, 1861, when he was elected captain of the company. In January, 1863, he was appointed judge advocate of the First corps of the army of Northern Virginia, commanded by General Longstreet, and in this position, combining both the functions of prosecutor and judge in the courts-martial of the army, he served with notable tact and efficiency until the close of the war. During his career in the army Major Blackford participated in the first battle of Manassas, part of Jackson's Valley campaign. Slaughter Mountain, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, Gettysburg, and Suffolk. He was paroled at Charlottesville, Va., in April, 1865, and then resumed the practice of the law at his former home. In his professional undertakings he has been eminently successful. His honorable career as a citizen, and distinction as a jurist, have well-rounded out a life honored in its earlier years by prominent service in the cause of the Confederate States.

Henry Edmundson Blair, for nearly a quarter of a century judge of the Fourteenth judicial circuit of Virginia, served with distinction as an officer of artillery in the army of Northern Virginia. He was born at Richmond in 1825, was reared there and in Montgomery county and was educated at the Richmond academy. After a study of law he was admitted to the bar at Salem, Va., in 1847, and engaged in the practice there in ante-bellum days. He attained such distinction as to be elected commonwealth's attorney in 1856, a position which he held through the war period and until 1868. In May, 1861, he abandoned his professional work to enlist as a volunteer in Hupp's battery, where he was at once given the rank of second lieutenant and promoted in the winter of 1862 to first lieutenant, the rank he held during the remainder of the war. His record includes service at Craney island during the first year of the war, the battles of Williamsport, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the second and third days of Gettysburg, Mine Run, Spottsylvania, Second Cold Harbor, Fort Gilmer, and artillery duty on the lines about Richmond during the long siege of 1864-65, and on the retreat to Appomattox, where he was paroled. During the Dahlgren raid he was captured by the enemy but was able to escape after three days. After the close of hostilities he returned to the home and professional business which he had established at Salem, and since then has maintained his residence at that city. In the session of the legislature of 1874 he served as representative of his county and in the same year was elected judge of the Fourteenth circuit, a position to which he has since been regularly re-elected at the expiration of each term. As a gallant veteran, as a public-spirited citizen, and as an able jurist and fearless judge, he is held in the highest estimation by the people. A brother of Judge Blair, Prof.