Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/811

Rh is regarded as one of the prominent young men of his profession. In 1893 he was married to Jennet P., daughter of Judge Thomas C. Fuller, of the United States court of private land claims at Santa Fe, N. M., and they have one child, Elliott M.

William P. Brett, of Newport News, a veteran of Mahone's brigade, army of Northern Virginia, is a native of the city of Richmond, born April 4, 1840, the son of Hudson and Rebecca C. (Bendle) Brett. He was reared and educated in his native city, and when just past the age of twenty-one entered the service of his State as a private in the Richmond Greys. This company was first assigned as Company A to the First Virginia regiment, but on April 19, 1861, was detached and sent to Norfolk, being the first of the Richmond military organizations to leave the city for the front. At Norfolk it became a part of the Twelfth Virginia regiment of infantry, and was assigned to the brigade of General Mahone, which displayed its admirable discipline and fighting qualities on many of the most famous fields of the four years' war which followed. With his regiment he participated in the battles of Drewry's Bluff, Seven Pines, King's School House, Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Crampton's Gap, Sharpsburg, Second Fredericksburg, United States Ford, and Spottsylvania. After the latter battle he was promoted to ordnance sergeant by General Mahone, and in that capacity he participated in the subsequent service of the brigade, at Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, and many months of service in the trenches before Petersburg, the battles of the Crater, Reams' Station and Yellow Tavern, finally surrendering with Lee. During this long and gallant service he was wounded four times, in the battles of Crampton's Gap, Fredericksburg, Spottsylvania and the Wilderness. After the close of hostilities he resided at Richmond until 1886, when he removed to Newport News. For six years he was in the service of the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad company, and since then he has held the position of chief wharf clerk of the Merchants and Miners' transportation company. He still enjoys his Confederate comradeship and is an active member of the Magruder camp, No. 36, Confederate Veterans. In 1873 he was married to Mary V. Alexander, of Fredericksburg, and they have three children living.

Henry Wilmot Brewer, a prominent civil engineer of Georgetown, D. C., was born at that city in 1834, and there reared and educated. On reaching manhood he embraced the profession of civil engineering, in which he gained such proficiency as to be appointed in 1858 to the United States coast survey, with the rank of master's mate in the navy. He continued in this employment until the outbreak of the war, when, thoroughly in sympathy with the cause of the South, he resigned his commission in April, 1861, and taking with him sixty or seventy men of like mind regarding their duty in the impending struggle, he repaired to Alexandria, Va., and joined the Washington volunteers. When these volunteers were mustered into the service he became second lieutenant of Company H, Seventh Virginia infantry, in which rank he served until the reorganization in the spring of 1862. The regiment was then disbanded and he went to Richmond and sought service where his professional acquirements would be more directly useful, and received the appointment of assistant engineer for the