Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/840

782 soon after the Surrender of General Lee's army and he then returned to his home in North Carolina. He gave his attention soon afterward to mercantile pursuits, in which he has since been engaged, with gratifying success. As a merchant and enterprising citizen he was highly esteemed at his old home, where he was elected the first mayor of the town of Jackson and given several other official positions. Since his removal to Newport News, where he conducts 4 large furniture establishment, he has been elected to the city council, and later president of the council. He is a member of Magruder camp, Confederate Veterans. In 1873 he married Miss Rennie Peele, sister of his early preceptor, and she having died in 1880, he was married in 1887 to Miss Isabel Metzler. He has four children living: Ruby, a teacher in the public schools of Newport News; Ernest Perry, James Arnold and Margaret.

Richard Corbin Byrd, Sr., of Norfolk, born at Whitehall in 1837, enlisted in the military service of Virginia in April, 1861, as a private in Company E, Twenty-sixth Virginia infantry. He was soon appointed sergeant-major of the regiment, a position he held until the reorganization of the army in 1862. He was then promoted lieutenant of his company. He was identified with the service of his regiment in Wise's brigade during the early part of the war in Virginia, and subsequently at Charleston, S. C., and in the defense of Petersburg and Richmond from Butler, in the spring of 1864, after which he fought in the Petersburg trenches until the evacuation. The captain of the company being severely wounded soon after the return to Virginia, Lieutenant Byrd was promoted captain. Among his more important battles were Malvern Hill, Bermuda Hundred, the Crater, Five Forks and Sailor's Creek. He commanded the remnant of his company at Appomattox. Since the return of peace he has resided at Whitehall, Gloucester county, the ancestral home of his family. His father, Samuel Powell Byrd, was the son of William Byrd, whose father bore the same name and was the son of Col. William Byrd, president of the Colonial council of Virginia, whose residence was at Westover, a plantation which was established in 1657. The wife of Captain Byrd is Ann Gordon, daughter of John Marshall, a grandson of the distinguished John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States.

Richard C. Byrd, Jr., son of the foregoing, was born at Whitehall, July 29, 1863. He was reared at the family home and educated by private tutors, until he had reached the age of seventeen years, when he began his business career at Norfolk. His early occupations were as a collector, then as a salesman for a Baltimore commission house, later as a traveling salesman for Norfolk establishments. In 1890 he embarked in the real estate business as a partner of W. M. Hannah. On April 1, 1891, he organized the new firm of Byrd, Baldwin & Co., which has since done a very successful business. He has served four years in the Light Artillery Blues, is a communicant of St. Luke's Episcopal church, and maintains memberships in the Virginia, Merrimac and Chesapeake clubs.

Colonel William Byrd, for many years a prominent lawyer of Winchester, Va., was born In 1828. He was educated at Georgetown college, the Virginia military institute, and the university of Virginia. In 1850 he went to Texas, where he became editor