Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/862

804 record for ability and impartial justice, and as president of the common council, president of the chamber of commerce, president of the National bank of Virginia, and director in many other important institutions, he has manifested a generous public spirit, and remarkable energy and physical endurance. Of the Virginia division of the army of Northern Virginia, the pioneer of the Confederate organizations of the South, he has always been an active and influential member, and served as its sixth president, succeeding Gens. Fitzhugh Lee, George E. Pickett, W. H. F. Lee, William B. Taliaferro and William H. Payne, in this honorable position.

R. L. Christian, a veteran business man of Richmond, rendered meritorious service throughout the entire war of the Confederacy in the artillery of the army of Northern Virginia. He is a native of Charles City county, Va., born in 1829, and was reared and educated in that county. Coming to Richmond in 1848 to embark on a business career, he made a modest beginning, but has ever since been engaged in a prosperous trade, either in the grocery or dry goods lines, except during the period of the war. He went into the military service of the State, at the outbreak of the struggle, as a private in the Richmond Howitzers and served with the guns for six months. Then being fitted by his previous training for the important work of provisioning the troops, he was appointed to the post of quartermaster of the battalion of artillery composed of the Second and Third Howitzers, the Powhatan artillery, the Salem artillery and the Rockbridge artillery. In this important relation he served with these famous commands until the surrender at Appomattox. After that event he returned to business life, working with renewed activity to repair the losses of the war. Now among the oldest business men of the city, he enjoys the respect and esteem that follow a long and honorable career. He maintains a membership in R. E. Lee camp, in comradeship with other survivors of the great struggle, and also with the Howitzer association.

John Herbert Claiborne, M. D., an eminent physician of Petersburg, during the Confederate era rendered distinguished service, both as a member of the Virginia senate and as a surgeon in the military service with the rank of major. He is a native of Brunswick county, born March 10, 1828, and is the descendant of a family distinguished for patriotic service to the commonwealth. His father, Rev. John G. Claiborne, born in Dinwiddie county in 1798, died at Petersburg in 1887, was a practitioner of the law and later a clergyman, and married Mary E., daughter of Daniel and Polly (Frazer) Weldon, of Roanoke, who died in 1857. The grandfather of Dr. Claiborne was Herbert Claiborne, who served in the Surry troop of Lee's legion during the war of the Revolution. The latter was the son of Col. Augustine Claiborne, secretary of the county of Surry during the reign of George III, and he was a great-grandson of William Claiborne, of Maryland. Dr. Claiborne was prepared for college at the Ebenezer academy in his native county, one of the oldest educational institutions of the State, and at an academy at Leesburg, N. C. He was graduated by Randolph-Macon college with the degree of A. B. and subsequently received the degree of A. M. from the same institution. Turning his attention to the study of medicine, he was graduated in that profession