Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/816

758 States by influence and force of arms. Henry Laurence Brooke gave two young sons to the army of Northern Virginia, St George T. Brooke, now professor of law in the university of Virginia, who served during three years in General Wickham's brigade of cavalry, and was badly wounded at Hawes Shop; and Frank J. Brooke, now a minister in the Presbyterian synod of Virginia, who during the last two years of the war was a courier with Gen. Custis Lee, and was captured at Sailor's Creek. Another son, Judge David Tucker Brooke, of Norfolk, was born at the city of Richmond, April 28, 1852, and passed his boyhood in the midst of the exciting events which occurred in and about the capital of the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865. After witnessing as a boy the evacuation of the city by the army of Northern Virginia he went to West Virginia and remained there until 1870, when he entered the university of Virginia. After studying there for one year, he was compelled to seek lucrative employment and for several years engaged in teaching school at Norfolk, meanwhile studying law under the preceptorship of Tazewell Taylor and gaining admission to the bar in 1874. The prominence which he soon obtained in his profession led to his election in 1884 to the office of judge of the corporation court, which he held for a period of eleven years. In 1895 he resumed the active practice as an attorney, in which he is meeting with notable success. Judge Brooke was married in 1880 to Miss Lucy Higgins, of Norfolk, by whom he has six children. Commander John M. Brooke, of the Confederate States navy, whose contributions to the sciences of navigation, deep sea topography and naval warfare will forever associate his name with the modern advancement of knowledge in those directions was born at Tampa Bay, Fla., in 1826. He entered the United States navy as a midshipman in 1841 and was graduated at the naval academy, Annapolis, in 1847. From 1851 to 1853 he was stationed at the naval observatory, and while there invented the deep-sea sounding-lead by means of which specimens of the deep-sea bottom were for the first time brought to light, and it was made possible not only to have positive evidence that bottom had been reached by the sounding, but also to have some knowledge of the character of the bottom. This invention was of inestimable value in the preparation of the maps of the deep seas and in the laying of the numerous submarine cables now so important a factor in the life of the civilized world. In recognition of his important services in this direction he received from the king of Prussia the gold medal of science, awarded by the academy of Berlin. From the naval observatory he was ordered to the North Pacific and BehringBering [sic] straits exploring expedition under command of Commodore Kinggold, and from 1853 to 1861 he was occupied in making extensive surveys of the coast of Japan, and on a route from California to China, serving as a pathmaker on the ocean wastes of the Pacific. At this time he held the rank of lieutenant in the United States navy, a commission which he promptly resigned upon the secession of Virginia. Proceeding to Richmond he reported to Commodore Barron, and was by the latter referred to Gen. R. E. Lee, with whom he served a few days as military secretary. He was soon afterward commissioned lieutenant, C. S. N., and assigned to the ordnance department, and while on this duty was asked,