Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/105

 UNDER THE CONFEDERACY

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and buoying the river. He commanded the steamer Nasliz'illc, October, 1861, to Febru- ary, 1862. It was the intention of Mason and Slidell, the Confederate commissioners, to take passage on the Nashville, and for this purpose Pegram was to run the blockade from Charleston ; but they feared to take the chances, and while he ran the blockade suc- cessfully in October, 1861, they were cap- tured on board the British mail steamer Trent. Pegram after capturing the Harvey Birch in the English Channel, landed his prisoners in Southampton and was held in port by the United States steamer Tuscarora until February, when he effected his escape and made harbor at Beaufort, North Caro- lina. He was detailed to superintend the armament of the iron-clad steamer Rich- mond, which he took to Drewry's Bluff, when he was transferred to the new iron- clad Virginia, the best vessel in the Confed- erate fleet. In 1864 funds were raised by Virginia to purchase and equip in England, a naval force to be called the Virginia Vol- unteer Navy, to be commanded by Capt. Pegram. He went to England for the pur- pose, and had one vessel in readiness when Lee surrendered. He was married (first) to Lucy Binns Cargill, of Sussex county, who was the mother of his seven children ; and (^secondly) to Sarah Leigh, of Norfolk. His eldest son, John Cargill Pegram, was killed ill battle before Petersburg, June 16, 1864, while a member of the staff of Gen. l^.lat- thew W. Ransom, of North Carolina, who commanded the Fourth brigade in Gen. P'Ushrod R. Johnson's division. Gen. R. H. /vnderson's corps. Capt. Pegram died in Norfolk, Virginia, October 24, 1894.

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Pendleton, Alexander Swift, who nad at- tained the rank of adjutant-general in the Confederate army, serving as such at the tnue of his death in the Second Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia, was born in Fairfax county, Virginia, September 28. 1840, at what is now the Episcopal High School, of which his father, the Rev. Dr. William N. Pendleton, was then the rector; his father was afterwards chief of artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia ; his mother was Anzolette Elizabeth (Page) Pendleton, daughter of Francis Page, Esq., of Hanover county, Virginia. Alexander S. Pendleton received his early education under his father's tuition, at thirteen years of age entered Washington College, Lexington, Vir- ginia, and in his senior year, before he was sixteen years old, was tutor in mathematics, and in 1857, before he was seventeen, was graduated at the head of his class, receiving the first honor of the college, and being ap- pointed to deliver the "Cincinnati Oration" ; entered the University of Virginia, in 1859, and in one year was graduated in half of the academic classes, intending to apply for the master's degree the following year; this was prevented by his entering the Confed- erate army, in which he was offered a sec- ond lieutenantcy ; he was on the stalif of Col. Thomas J. Jackson, and his successors: was promoted for conspicuous gallantry at Falling Waters and at Manassas, and was again and again recommended for promo- tion ; after the seven days' fight around Richmond, he was made a captain and was also promoted major in the same year ; he was with Gen. Jackson at Chancellorsville when the latter was shot ; when Gen. Ewell succeeded Gen. Jackson, he was promoted