Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/844

786 a citizen and as a faithful and efficient official. He is a member of the Confederate Veterans association, of the District of Columbia, being chairman of the executive committee.

Captain William E. Cameron, of the Confederate States army, and since the war governor of Virginia, was born at Petersburg, November 29, 1842. He studied in the schools of that city and attended two sessions of the North Carolina military academy at Hillsboro. At seventeen years of age he manifested an independent and courageous spirit by going into the West, where he was employed, at the outbreak of the war, as a clerk on the steamers of the St. Louis & Memphis packet company. Earnestly sympathizing with the movement of the South for independence, he was with the Missouri minute men at Camp Jackson when they were captured by General Lyon, but escaped in the confusion, and speedily taking boat, soon afterward reached Virginia. He enlisted at Norfolk in the Petersburg City Guard, under Capt. John P. May, subsequently Company A of the Twelfth Virginia infantry, and soon after his arrival was elected second lieutenant of Company D of that regiment. In May, 1862, he was appointed adjutant of the regiment, in which rank he took part in the Peninsular campaign and the battle of Second Manassas, in the latter engagement receiving a wound which disabled him until the following December, when he reported for duty during the battle of Fredericksburg. He was then detailed as brigade-inspector of Mahone's brigade, in which capacity he served until June, 1863, when he returned to his regiment and with it participated in the Gettysburg campaign. In December, 1863, he was commissioned captain in the inspector-general's department and assigned to duty with Davis' brigade of Heth's division. In this capacity he participated in the campaigns of the spring and summer of 1864, and the battles from the Wilderness to the Weldon railroad. In October he was appointed assistant adjutant-general, and assigned to his old brigade, then under the command of General Weisiger, in Mahone's division, with which he remained during the siege of Petersburg and the subsequent retreat, finally surrendering at Appomattox. In the eventful years immediately following the war Captain Cameron was a conspicuous figure. He began the study of law immediately after hostilities closed, but at the same time performed the duties of local editor of the Petersburg Index. Finding that journalism gave him a ready field of influence, he continued in that work as editor of the Norfolk Virginian and editor of the Petersburg Index, and after 1870 as editor successively of the Richmond Whig and the Enquirer. From Governor Walker, in this period, he received the honor of appointment as colonel upon the gubernatorial staff. In 1876 he was elected mayor of his native city and held the office by re-election until December 31, 1881, when he resigned to become the governor of Virginia, an office to which he had been elected in November of that year. He discharged the duties of chief executive with dignity and honor during a term of four years, and then returned to Petersburg and resumed the practice of law. Since, with the exception of a brief residence in Florida, he has been an honored citizen of his native town and devoted to the work of his profession.

R. J. Camp, a prominent citizen of Franklin, Va., is a younger