Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/861

Rh soon became associated with the Daily Examiner as private secretary of the editor, beginning in this capacity a career of journalism in which he has been eminently successful. Subsequently he was made business manager of the Southern Opinion company, from which position he returned to the Enquirer as local editor. Since 1874 he has been connected with the Dispatch, of which he is vice-president at the present time. For twelve years Mr. Chesterman was a member of the board of directors of the State penitentiary. He maintains a membership in Lee camp of Confederate Veterans.

Aurelius Garland Chewning, a prominent business man of Roanoke, who served as a boy with the cavalry of Gen. W. H. F. Lee, was born in Caroline county, October 23, 1847, and was reared until the age of fourteen years at the home of his parents in Spottsylvania county. When he had reached the latter age the devastations of war compelled the family to take refuge in Caroline county, where he remained until July, 1864, when, being in his seventeenth year, he determined to serve with the army. He volunteered with Company E of the Ninth cavalry, and did camp duty, though not regularly enlisted, until October, 1864. After that date he participated in the operations of the regiment until the surrender. He was in the cavalry engagements at Ashland and about Petersburg and Richmond during the siege, the fighting on the retreat, including Five Forks and the final operations at Appomattox. With the cavalry he did not remain for the surrender, but subsequently was paroled at Ashland. After the conclusion of hostilities he busied himself at farming in Caroline county for two years, and then was occupied as a clerk at Fredericksburg for five years. During the next seventeen years he was in business at Washington, whence he removed in 1889 to make his home at Roanoke.

George L. Christian, one of Richmond's best known and most esteemed citizens, was born in Charles City county in 1842, where he was reared and educated at the Northwood academy. In 1859 he left his native county and soon afterward made his home at Richmond. At the beginning of the war he enlisted in the Richmond Howitzers and subsequently took part in all the engagements of that gallant command until he was disabled by wounds, receiving promotion to the rank of sergeant. With the Howitzers he took part in the siege of Yorktown and the battles of Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Winchester, and fought through the bloody conflicts of 1864 in the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania, until, at the "bloody angle," he received wounds that rendered him unfit for further military duty. In the heat of the fight with his battery, a cannon ball tore off one foot entirely and the heel of the other, maiming him for life. As soon as he was able to walk after this injury, he entered the university of Virginia for the study of law and embarked in that profession, in which he has since achieved notable success. From 1872 to 1878 he held the office of clerk of the supreme court, and from 1878 to 1883 served as judge of the Hustings court of Richmond. In civil life he again narrowly escaped death during the Capitol disaster, his life being saved on this occasion by the bodies of two others who were killed. As judge he made a fine