Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/938

874 and the rank of knight commander of the Court of Honor, and on October 22, 1897, had conferred upon him the thirty-third degree, the highest degree in Masonry. He cherishes a membership in Lee camp, U. C. V., of Richmond, Va., by whom he was presented the golden badge of honor for soldierly and knightly qualities, and is a charter member of the Confederate Veterans' association of the District, and in 1898 was its honored president. His home life is made happy by his marriage, which occurred October 27, 1886, to Miss Bell Vedder, daughter of Col. Nicholas Vedder, U. S. army, formerly chief paymaster for General Sherman. He now has two children, one a daughter, India Bell Vedder, born October 3, 1887, and a son, Robert Vedder, born November 3, 1890. Particularly worthy of note in this connection, are the comradeship and beneficence of Mr. Fleming, since the war, toward the ex-soldiers of the Confederacy. In May, 1886, he entertained R. E. Lee camp, U. C. V., of Richmond, while passing through Washington in return from the Baltimore reunion, presented each member to President Cleveland and banqueted them at the National hotel. Marching at their head, he led the first organization of Confederate veterans to move up Pennsylvania avenue after the war. When Lee camp undertook a fair at Richmond for the purchase of a soldiers' home, he made the first subscription, aided in securing others, and, afterward, finding the accommodations at the home insufficient, he generously donated an amount sufficient to remodel and to build an additional story on the main building, which has since borne his name. At the formal presentation of the Fleming Addition, July 2, 1886, Mr. Fleming was the recipient of many touching honors; salutes and cheers from the inmates of the home, and a hearty reception by his old comrades of the Fayette artillery, joined in by the U. C. V., and Kearney post, G. A. R., for a soul like Fleming's finds the whole world kin. He was thanked, also, in the eloquent address of acceptance by Gov. Fitzhugh Lee, who said: "While it has been an honored custom to strew flowers on the graves of our dead, here was a living soldier who had made a magnificent gift to his living comrades, which would never be forgotten, and when we have passed away, the deed will still be remembered." His beneficence was formally recognized at Washington by resolutions adopted by the Virginia Democratic association. In December, 1874, he participated as one of the pallbearers—the others being Gen. P. M. B. Young and P. I. Cook, of Georgia; Dr. H. W. Garnett, Dr. Young, Dr. Boyle, W. Harmon, J. W. Drew, Col. L. Q. C. Lamar, Wm. Stone, George T. Howard and Col. A. Herbert—in the pathetic ceremony of removing the Confederate dead, who fell in General Early's attack upon Washington, from their shallow trenches, to Grace church near Silver Spring, where they now sleep beneath a monument erected by the camps of Washington and Rockville. In brief the gallant record of Mr. Fleming as a soldier has been adequately crowned by the true manliness of his performance of the duties of peace.

Henry W. Flournoy, of Richmond, distinguished in the legal profession of that city, was born in Halifax county, June 6, 1846. During his youth he was educated in the vicinity of his home and in Charlotte county, but before he had reached his sixteenth birthday