Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/829

Rh. After serving for some time as a private he was appointed a cadet in the regular Confederate States army and assigned to the Seventeenth regiment as assistant adjutant. At the reorganization, in 1862, he was promoted to adjutant of the regiment, a position he held until the following December, when he was assigned to the staff of Brig.-Gen. M. D. Corse as assistant adjutant and inspector-general. This position he held until early in the year 1865, when he was ordered to General Terry's brigade. Among the battles in which he participated were Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Frayser's Farm, Second Manassas, Boonsboro, Fredericksburg, New Bern, Plymouth and Roanoke, N. C., Drewry's Bluff, Front Royal, the skirmishes on the Howlett house line, Dinwiddie Court House, Five Forks and Sailor's Creek. At Seven Pines his horse was killed under him and he was slightly wounded; and at Boonsboro he was seriously wounded and fell into the hands of the enemy, but was paroled and returned to Washington, when by exchange two months later he was permitted to rejoin his command. At Sailor's Creek he was again badly wounded and captured and taken to Washington. After lying in the hospital three months he was paroled by special order of General Grant. Since the return of peace he has been a citizen of Alexandria, where he has been honored for sixteen years by the office of alderman and school trustee, and since 1895 with the office of police commissioner.

J. F. Bryant, M. D., a prominent physician of Franklin, Va., and throughout his military career closely associated with the gallant General Armistead, one of the heroes of the army of Northern Virginia, was born in Southampton county, February 22, 1842. He is the son of James D. and Elizabeth S. Bryant. His father, a prosperous farmer of Southampton county, was for a long time president of the board of magistrates and was a leader in political affairs. Dr. Bryant was a student in the university of Virginia at the time of the secession of his State, and promptly left his studies in April, 1861, to become a private in Company A of the Thirteenth Virginia cavalry. His company was stationed in the neighborhood of Norfolk, where he remained until after the evacuation, when he was detailed as courier and attached to the headquarters of General Armistead. He served in this capacity through several months and was then offered a staff position, but preferring to rejoin his company he shared their campaigns under Stuart and Fitzhugh Lee until the close of the war. He was wounded at Brandy Station and at Five Forks, and was twice captured, but each time escaped. At the time of the surrender he was at his home disabled by wounds. He then began preparation for the medical profession and studied in the university of Virginia and the university of New York, receiving his degree of doctor of medicine in the spring of 1867. Since then he has been successfully engaged in practice at Franklin, Va. He is a member of the medical society of the State and enjoys a high standing in his profession. He has also been conspicuous in educational affairs as superintendent of schools of Southampton county for many years. He was the first mayor of Franklin, has taken an active part in political life as chairman of the county and congressional committees, was a member for many years of the State committee and was one of the delegates of Virginia to the national Democratic convention at Chicago in 1892. Dr. Bryant has two sons living, Richard B., purser of the steamer