Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 4.djvu/317

Rh grated to this country, arriving at Philadelphia, in the ship Phœnix, September 30, 1743. John Paul or Paulus Barringer, as he was called, married Catharine, daughter of Caleb Blackwelder and Polly Decker of Germany. Of their ten children by this (second) marriage, the eldest, Paul Barringer, was prominent in the service of the State and was commissioned a brigadier-general during the war of 1812. During his infancy his grandfather Blackwelder, and his father Paulus Barringer, a captain in the colonial militia and a conspicuous member of the committee of safety, were taken prisoners by the tories and carried to Cheraw, S. C. Paul Barringer married Elizabeth, daughter of Jean Armstrong and Matthew Brandon, who was with Joseph Graham and Colonel Locke in the repulse of the British near Charlotte, and also served with Col. John Brandon at Ramseur's mill. Gen. Rufus Barringer, son of the above, was born in 1821, and was graduated at North Carolina university in 1842. He studied law with his brother Moreau, then with Chief-Justice Pearson, settling in Concord. A Whig in politics, in 1848 he served in the lower house of the State legislature, and here was in advance of his time in advocating a progressive system of internal improvements. The following session he was elected to the State senate. He then devoted himself to his practice until he was made in 1860 a Whig elector in behalf of Bell and Everett. He was tenacious of his principles, and not to be swerved from duty by any amount of ridicule or opposition; was devotedly attached to the Union and the Constitution, and with rare discernment saw that the consequence of secession would be war, the fiercest and bloodiest of modern times, and he was so outspoken with his convictions that he was once caricatured in the streets of Charlotte. However, when he saw that war was inevitable, his duty to his State came uppermost, and even before the final ordinance of secession was passed he urged the legislature, then in session, to arm the State and warn the