Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 4.djvu/430

400 greater loss than all the other troops combined, and furnishing the first martyr of the war, Private Henry L. Wyatt. Captain Bridgers gallantly led his company in a charge upon the enemy, driving the Zouaves from the advanced howitzer battery. Colonel Hill reported: &quot;It is impossible to overestimate this service. It decided the action in our favor,&quot; and General Magruder also alluded in the most complimentary terms to the daring gallantry of Captain Bridgers at the critical period of the battle. Subsequently Captain Bridgers was promoted to lieutenant-colonel of the Tenth artillery, commanded by Col. J. A. J. Bradford, and after the latter officer was captured by the Federals at Fort Macon, Bridgers succeeded to the command, and occupied the fort until failing health compelled him to resign. In the latter part of 1863 he declined, on account of ill health, the promotion of brigadier -general in cavalry. Afterward, when his health permitted, he was on duty upon the staff of Gen. D. H. Hill, when the latter was in command in eastern North Carolina. He was also associated with his brother, R. R. Bridgers, at the request of the government, in the management of the High Shoals iron furnaces, nail and rolling mills, which were the second in importance in the South, and did much government work. At the close of hostilities he resumed his professional work until forced to retire to his farm on account of sickness. He died January 22, 1884, after a long illness.

Captain Benjamin F. Briggs, of Wilson, N. C., was born in Wayne county in 1836, and was there reared and educated. As a young man he held a station of much prominence in his community, and resigned the office of clerk of the superior court to enter the Confederate service in the summer of 1862. He enlisted as a private in Company A of the Fifty-fifth regiment, was at once appointed first sergeant, soon afterward promoted third lieutenant, then passed through the grades of second and first lieutenant, and after the battle of Gettysburg was promoted captain of his company. Among the engagements in which he participated were those of the Suffolk campaign, three days of battle of Gettysburg, Falling Waters, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court House, and the subsequent fighting from the Rapidan to the James, after which he —