Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 4.djvu/322

298 1894, came a plea from Judge Clark for a history of the Ninth regiment, State troops (First North Carolina cavalry), saying, &quot;You are very busy, and that is one reason you are selected. Only busy men have the energy and talent to do this work. Your record as a soldier satisfies me that you will not decline the post of duty. Already confined to bed, he called for books and papers, and with the zeal and haste of one impressed with the importance of the work and the shortness of time, he put on the finishing touches not many days before the end. It was a labor of love. The purpose of his thought, which never seemed to weaken, was the uplifting of his fellow men, the prosperity of his beloved church, and care for his old comrades. One of his last injunctions to his son was, "Remember Company F; see that not one of them ever suffers want. They ever loved me, they were ever faithful to me, and Paul, always stand by our Confederate soldiers, and North Carolina. Let her never be traduced.&quot; He died February 3, 1895, leaving a wife and three sons; the eldest, Dr. Paul Barringer, now chairman of the university of Virginia; the youngest, Osmond Long Barringer, with his mother in Charlotte. His first wife was Eugenia Morrison, sister of Mrs. T. J. (Stonewall) Jackson; the second Rosalie Chunn, of Asheville; the surviving one Margaret Long of Orange county.

Brigadier-General Lawrence O Brian Branch was born in Halifax county, N. C., November 28, 1820. Five years later his mother died, and his father, who had removed to Tennessee, died in 1827. He was then brought back to his native State by his guardian, Gov. John Branch, and was taken to Washington when the governor was appointed secretary of the navy in 1829. At the national capital the boy studied under various preceptors, one of them being Salmon P. Chase, after ward secretary of the treasury. He was graduated with first honors at Princeton in 1838, after which he resided