Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 5.djvu/397

Rh in the practice of medicine at his native town, having completed a professional course at the Charleston college. In 1861 he enlisted in the first call for ten regiments of troops, as a private, and being promoted captain, served in that capacity during the bombardment of Fort Sumter, and until the State troops were called upon to enlist in the Confederate service. His company declining to respond, he again enlisted as a private, and with twenty-three men of his old command helped to fill up a company for the Sixth regiment. This was soon ordered to Virginia, where he went as second lieutenant of Company C. Except for the engagement at Dranesville, the year for which the regiment enlisted was uneventful, but toward the close he attracted the favorable attention of General Johnston by advocating the enlistment of his regiment as a whole for the war, and though this proposition failed, he was enabled to re-enlist the first company of one year’s men of Johnston’s army. It followed that a battalion of six companies of the Sixth was re-enlisted, and he was soon elected to the command, and promoted colonel when the regiment was filled up. He commanded his regiment with gallantry in Jenkins brigade, Longstreet’s corps, at Williamsburg, Seven Pines, the Seven Days battles, and the succeeding campaigns of the army of Northern Virginia, and in the Chickamauga and Knoxville campaigns, where he was in command of the brigade while Jenkins had charge of Hood s division. After the death of Jenkins]at the battle of the Wilderness, he was at once promoted brigadier-general on the urgent request of General Lee, and he continued to lead this famous brigade to the end. At Appomattox, so well had his gallant men held together, he had the largest brigade in the army, a little over 1,500 men, and in fact it was larger than some of the divisions. His brigade alone made an orderly march to Danville and secured railroad transportation for a part of their homeward journey. When General Bratton reached home he gave his