Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/889

Rh Meadow Bridge, Trevilian's, White House, Nance's Shop, Reams' Station, and Front Royal. During this service three horses were killed under him. On August 16, 1864, at the Front Royal fight, he was captured, and after a week's confinement in the Old Capitol prison, was held at Elmira, N. Y., until March 10, 1865. He was then paroled for three months, with other invalid prisoners, and the war closed soon afterward. Since the war he has been actively engaged in his business as a carpenter and builder, his principal work being the famous Hygeia hotel at Old Point Comfort. In 1895 he was elected commissioner of revenue of the city of Hampton. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the Hampton school. He was one of the charter members of his camp of Confederate veterans and the first commander. In 1866 he was married to Mary L. Curtis, of Hampton, and they have seven children: Minnie T., wife of Joseph B. Deistal; Rachel E., wife of A. C. Vaughan; Vernon L, William J., Silas Stuart, Marthella P., wife of Frank M. Phoebus, and Elbert Bruce.

Major James Dawley Darden, a Virginian, who was prominently connected with the provisional army of the Confederate States, after the war a resident of Washington, D. C., was born at the town of Smithfield in 1828. In infancy his home was made at Portsmouth, Va., and thence in 1838 he accompanied his family to Washington, where he received his education. In the year 1860 Major Darden was an official in the United States custom house at San Francisco, but, after the election of Mr. Lincoln to the presidency, resigned his position and returned to Virginia. Being heartily in sympathy with his State, he tendered his services for her defense after secession was decided upon, and in the summer of 1861 he was appointed to the staff of Gen. Lewis Armistead as aide-de-camp with the rank of first lieutenant. In this capacity he served until July 31, 1862, when he was promoted captain and assigned to the staff of the adjutant-general of the provisional army. His service continued until the close of the war, when he surrendered at Charlottesville, Va., and was paroled. His duties were of such a nature as to bring him prominently upon many of the famous battlefields of the war, where his conduct was characterized by the bravery and foresight of a skillful soldier. The most notable engagements in which he participated were Seven Pines, Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Bermuda Hundred, Fredericksburg, Rappahannock Bridge and Gettysburg. His horses were killed under him at Seven Pines, Malvern Hill and Manassas, and he was twice wounded, once at Gettysburg and once, in the right leg, at Rappahannock Bridge. After the conclusion of the war he returned to Washington, and subsequently resided in Texas, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tenn., until 1881, when he made his permanent home at Washington. He acquired a membership in the Washington association of Confederate veterans.

James J. Dashiell, a brave veteran of the Sixth Virginia regiment, and now a respected citizen of Portsmouth, Va., was born in Surry county, April 6, 1837. His father, James J. Dashiell, a native of the same county, a brickmason and farther by occupation, died in 1847. His mother, Irena E. Wyatt, a native of Suffolk, Va., died in 1894. At nine years of age Mr. Dashiell, his father having previously died, accompanied his mother to Suffolk, where