Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/908

848 beginning of war in 1861. He then enlisted, June 1, 1861, as a private in the Henry Guards, which became Company H, Twenty-fourth Virginia infantry, and the next fall was elected captain. Declining re-election on account of failing health, in the spring of 1862 he was succeeded by Capt. O. M. Barrow, but he returned to the company as a private not long afterward and fought at the battle of Second Manassas, where he was wounded in the left side, compelling his remaining at home until the following November. Again joining the company, he was promoted first lieutenant, and soon after the battle of Gettysburg, which he witnessed but could not take part in on account of illness, he was commissioned captain of Company B of his regiment. In these various ranks he fought in the battles of Blackburn's Ford, first and second Manassas, Williamsburg, Fredericksburg, Cold Harbor, Drewry's Bluff, Five Forks and Sailor's Creek. In the latter disastrous affair he was captured, and from then until June 18th was a prisoner of war, mainly at Johnson's island. In the fall of 1865 he visited Missouri and Texas, but returned to Henry county a year later and embarked in business. Since 1869 he has been prominent in business affairs at Danville.

Charles Peter Eanes, of Petersburg, a Confederate who had an interesting career in both army and navy, was born at Petersburg in 1843, the son of German Eanes, a farmer of Chesterfield county, who died previous to 1861. In May, 1861, being then seventeen years of age, Mr. Eanes enlisted in the Archer Rifles, a volunteer company, afterward assigned as Company K to the Twelfth Virginia regiment of infantry. His first service was at Fort Powhatan, on the James, after which he was stationed at Craney island, near Norfolk. Early in 1862 he enlisted in the Confederate navy and was assigned to one of the vessels at Roanoke island under Commodore Lynch. Here he took part in the gallant defense made against Burnside's expedition, until his ship was sunk in the first day's engagement, when the crew was transferred to a schooner, mounting five guns, in which they sailed up the Pasquotank river to Elizabeth City and made a second stand under the guns of a Confederate battery. Here again they were crushed by superior strength, and Eanes and his comrades, after they had abandoned their vessel, made their way through the Dismal Swamp, coming out at Camden Court House, and thence making their way to South Mills, took a steamer for Norfolk. After a short visit to his home, Mr. Eanes returned to Norfolk and was one of the crew of the Virginia in her first trip down Hampton Roads, in which the Cumberland was sunk and the Congress captured. He was then sent to the naval hospital, but, returning to the Virginia, he was upon her in the last trip, under fire of Fortress Monroe and the Rip-rap batteries, when she sought to draw the Monitor into another engagement, but failed on account of the retreat of the Federal ironclad. He was one of the crew, when it was determined to lighten the Virginia so that she might steam up the James river, that worked all night for that purpose, and he finally left the famous ironclad when she was blown up by her own men. After this event Mr. Eanes returned to his old infantry command arid participated in the Seven Days' battles before Richmond, Chancellorsville and other important engagements, though during a considerable part of the