Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/917

Rh merchant. In 1885 he was appointed receiver of the Norfolk & Virginia Beach railroad and two years later he retired from the cotton trade to engage in the location and construction of the Norfolk & Carolina railroad, now the Norfolk branch of the Atlantic Coast Line. Since the completion of the railroad he has held the position of treasurer of the company. Captain Elliott's public services and business abilities have received many evidences of appreciation. In 1872 he was elected a member of the common council of the city, and, during the succeeding ten years, served as its vice-president and chairman of the finance committee, this being followed by two years' service as president. For five years he was president of the State board of harbor commissioners, and, in 1881, was made president of the Norfolk & Portsmouth cotton exchange, serving two years and being a part of this time, ex-officio, vice-president of the National cotton exchange. Amid his other occupations, Captain Elliott finds time to remember his comrades of the Confederate armies, and was one of the four founders of Pickett-Buchanan camp of Norfolk.

J. Taylor Ellyson, of Richmond, a member of the Richmond Howitzers during the later years of the war, and since then conspicuous in Confederate organizations and in the due commemoration of the heroism of the men in gray, was born at Richmond, May 20, 1847. His father, Henry K. Ellyson, born at the same city in 1823, was a prominent citizen, holding the offices of register of the city member of the legislature 1855-58, sheriff to 1865, and mayor of Richmond in 1871. He was married, in 1842, to Miss Elizabeth P. Barnes, of Philadelphia. J. Taylor Ellyson was a student in Hampden-Sidney college at the beginning of the war, but, in 1863, at the age of sixteen years, left his studies to enter the Confederate army. He enlisted as a private in the second company of Richmond Howitzers, and was identified with the record of that famous command during the remainder of the conflict. In the battalion of Lieut.-Col. Robert A. Hardaway, and attached to Ewell's corps, he fought at the Wilderness and Spottsylvania Court House. During the bloody struggle of May 10th, the battalion was particularly distinguished, and suffered heavy loss. Major Watson, former captain of the Second Howitzers, being among the killed. During this fight, the guns of Smith's battery were for a time in the hands of the enemy, its brave gunners serving the guns until those not killed were actually seized by the charging soldiers and carried away. A countercharge rescued the guns and the enemy was repulsed. The battery was further engaged at Spottsylvania and for four days, during the desperate struggle at Cold Harbor, was in action and under fire. During the long siege of Richmond, Private Ellyson served with his battery in the vicinity of Richmond and Petersburg. After the close of hostilities, having reached the age of eighteen years, he entered upon collegiate studies at Columbian college, Washington, which he continued at Richmond college and the university of Virginia. The latter institution he left in 1870, and embarked in business life at Richmond, in the book and stationery trade. In 1878 he became business manager of the "Religious Herald," and several other important enterprises have also claimed his business talents; of one of these, the Old Dominion building and loan