Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/955

Rh Madison county. Colonel Gibson was elected to the Virginia legislature in 1879 and several times subsequently, and, during the first administration of President Cleveland, he was United States attorney for the eastern district of Virginia. Several brothers of Colonel Gibson were in the Confederate service. Pierre Gibson was an officer of the Sixth Virginia cavalry and was killed at Westminster, Md., previous to the battle of Gettysburg; John S. Gibson, an ordnance officer of the Forty-ninth regiment, died after the war, in Alabama; Eustace Gibson, first lieutenant in the Seventh cavalry, until disabled by wounds, afterward captain quartermaster, has, since the war, represented a West Virginia district in Congress; Edwin Gibson, who enlisted before he was fourteen years old, was elected lieutenant and captain, but, on account of his youth, was sent to the Virginia military institute. He died in 1869.

John St. P. Gibson, M. D., of Staunton, Va., was born in Culpeper, now Rappahannock county, Va., in 1832. Removing with his parents to Maryland, in 1842, he studied medicine in the university of Maryland and was graduated in 1858. He practiced his profession in Preston county, Va., until July, 1862, when he entered the Confederate service as surgeon in the rear hospitals at Aldie and Winchester. In November he was commissioned assistant surgeon of the Fifty-second Virginia infantry, was soon promoted surgeon, and at Gettysburg, and thence until the close of the war, held the rank of brigade surgeon. After his parole at Appomattox he practiced at Waynesboro until 1877, when he made his home at Staunton, where his professional career has been eminently successful It is interesting to note that Dr. Gibson and Stonewall Jackson descended from the same great-grandfather, Minor Winn.

Robertson Gilbert, a heroic soldier of Mahone's brigade, army of Northern Virginia, left his farm home in Norfolk county, in April, 1861, as a private in the Norfolk County Rifle Patriots, for the military service of Virginia. His company was organized in 1860. After the 21st of April it served at the arsenal of St. Helena and the Gosport navy yard, until March, 1862, when it joined the Forty-first regiment, Virginia infantry, under Colonel (afterward General) Chambliss, at Sewell's point, as Company F. His first battle was at Seven Pines, where his company was distinguished for steady valor, and he subsequently fought on the peninsula, at the Charles City road and Malvern hill. Throughout the remainder of the career of Mahone's brigade he was a faithful and devoted soldier, shared all the famous battles of his command, including Second Manassas, Crampton's Gap, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Bristoe Station, Mine Run, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Turkey Ridge, Frayser's Farm, Cold Harbor, the many months in the trenches, including the famous battle of the Crater, Davis' Farm, Reams' Station, Burgess' Mill, Hatcher's Run and Cumberland Church. Surviving all this arduous and dangerous service, he removed to Tennessee after the close of hostilities and died there in 1882. Lafayette Gilbert, a son of the above, who cherishes the memory of the patriotic deeds of his father, and is an active member of the Junior Neimeyer-Shaw camp, Confederate Veterans, was born in North Carolina and was brought by his parents to Norfolk county in his childhood. Here, during his early manhood, he was engaged in farming, but left that to embark in the lumber trade, which he followed until