Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/308

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

.Maryland, from 1856 to 1859, and then of St. Anne's parish, in Anne Arundel county. Maryland, until 1861. when, as an ardent Southerner, he gave up his charge, "ran the blockade" at great risk, and became chap- lain of the Thirty-second Virginia Regi- ment, "Army of the Peninsula." From 1862 until the close of the war between the states, he was Chaplain (General of the Richmond prisons, where he won the love of the Fed- eral prisoners by his many kindnesses to them. Afterward he had various charges in Delaware and Pennsylvania, and died at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, 1875. He held the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the ancient college of William and Mary, was a frequent lecturer on literary and histori- cal subjects, issued a volume of poems, and was the author of numerous memorial ad- dresses and poems, which were published separately or in the magazines.

Rev. Dr. McCabe married, August 7, 1838, Sophia Gordon Taylor, whose great-grand- father, George Taylor, was one of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence. James Taylor, a son of George Taylor, the Signer, married Elizabeth Gordon, eldest daughter of that Lewis Gordon, of "the Gor- dons of Earlston" in Scotland, who after the troubles of "the 45" (on account of which the chief of the house, the gallant William Gordon, of Kenmure, lost his head on Tower Hill) came to America and settled in Pennsylvania. Lewis Gordon married, in 1750, a daughter of Aaron Jenkins, a prominent citizen of Philadelphia, and, re- moving to Easton, Pennsylvania, became the legal and financial agent of the Penns, was the foremost lawyer at the Northamp- ton county bar, and for many years was the prothonotary, or chief clerk of the courts at Easton. One of the grandsons of Lewis (lordon, of Easton, was William Lewis Gor- don, a distinguished officer of the United States navy, who for gallantry in the war of 1812 was repeatedly mentioned in orders, and was voted by the commonwealth of Virginia a sword of honor. William Gor- don McCabe was named for this great-uncle, his mother having become the former's adoi)ted daughter after the death of her mother, who was the wife of Colonel James Taylor, her cousin, of Richmond, Virginia, and sister of Captain Gordon. Another of Mrs. Taylor's brothers was Captain Alex- ander George Gordon, also of the United

States navy, and two of her nephews, Lewis Gordon Keith and William Macon Swann, were likewise officers in the naval service. It was, in fact, what was termed in ante- bellum days, "a navy family," for besides those named there were other kinsmen of theirs in that branch of the service.

The first ten years of William Gordon McCabe's life were spent at Smithfield, and the following six at Hampton. At the lat- ter place he entered the classical academy of which the late Colonel John B. Gary was the head, and there gave token of the schol- arship which he was later to achieve by carrying off in the last two years of his at- tendance upon the school the highest hon- ors. In i860 he entered the University of Virginia, after having taught for a short time as a private tutor in the Selden family of "Westover" on the James. But the stu- dents and scholars of the university were among the first to answer Virginia's call to arms in 1861, and on the very night of that fateful day on which the commonwealth dissolved her relations with the Union, April 17, 1861, young McCabe, not yet twenty years old, started with a student company, "The Southern Guard," on the march for Harper's Ferry, and remained thencefor- ward a soldier of the Confederate States until the sun set upon General Lee's surren- der at Appomattox. In all the shifting and tragic scenes of that tremendous struggle he bore himself with the courage and forti- tude that characterized the finest type of the Confederate soldier. He served as a private through the Peninsular Campaign in 1861 ; was commissioned in 1862 a first lieu- tenant of artillery in the "Provisional Army of the Confederate States," and as such was in the Seven Days battles around Rich- mond; later he became Adjutant of Atkin- son's heavy artillery battalion, serving with it only a few months, and then of Light- foot's light artillery battalion, with which he served in the Chancellorsville campaign. In June, 1863, he was assigned to duty as Assistant Adjutant-General at Charleston, South Carolina, and was in Fort Sumter and Battery Wagner during much of the heaviest fighting. For his services at Charles- ton, (ienerals Beauregard and R. S. Ripley both recommended him for ])romtion, but in the autumn of 1863 he was ordered back to Virginia upon his own application, and was for a brief period on the staff' of Gen-