Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/741

246 the certificate of election to the Forty-seventh Congress, but his seat was successfully contested by John R. Lynch. He was elected to the Forty-eighth Congress, and held his seat in spite of a contest. He also claimed election to the Fifty-first Congress, but on a contest the seat was given to his opponent. After that time he devoted himself to the practice of law. His home was at Vicksburg, Miss., until his death in April, 1898.

Brigadier-General Charles Clark was born in Ohio, in May, 1811. He could boast descent from the old Puritan stock, his ancestors having come over in the Mayflower. He was graduated at Augusta college in the State of Kentucky, and then moved to Mississippi, where he taught school. After pursuing this vocation in the city of Natchez and in Yazoo county he read law and, being admitted to the bar, located in Jefferson county. He also engaged in planting in Bolivar county. During the war with Mexico he entered the service of the United States as captain of a company in the Second Mississippi regiment, of which he was later elected colonel. Returning home after the peace with Mexico, he took great interest in the questions that were at that time agitating the country. All his sympathies were with his adopted State and he espoused her cause with all his heart. He was one of the brigadier-generals of State troops under Maj.-Gen. Jefferson Davis, and on the 15th of April, 1861, he became major-general commanding State forces. This position he resigned to take a lower one in the provisional army of the Confederate States. His commission as brigadier-general dated from May 22, 1861. His service was for a short while in the army of Northern Virginia and then in the army of Central Kentucky. He marched with the army of General Johnston to the field of Shiloh, and in that battle commanded the first division of the First corps of the army of Mississippi. At Baton Rouge, in July, 1862, he was so desperately wounded as to be disabled from further service. The people of