Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/441

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

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covering Johnson's rear, as he fell back from Alanassas. He did not hear of their death for a month. The regiment was drawn up in line of battle when a courier rode up and handed him his wife's letter announcing the sad news. Before he finished reading it. the order came to advance and he had to take the head of his company and lead it under heavy fire. The little daughter he had never seen.

Eugene Blackford, born February 11, 1863, lived but a short time.

Charles Minor Blackford, Jr., born Sep- tember 5. 1865, now living in Staunton, Vir- ginia (1915).

Raleigh Colston Blackford, born June 25, 1870, now practicing law in Lynchburg, Virginia, and living with his mother (1915J.

At the time of the military excitement in- cident to the "John Brown Raid," Mr. Blackford joined a company of cavalry, com- manded by R. C. W. Radford, formerly a captain of cavalry in the United States army. With a company from Bedford, com- manded by Captain W. R. Terry, it formed the nucleus of the regiment afterward known as the Second Virginia Cavalry. Early in April, 1861, these companies were put on a war footing and ordered into camp in the woods now in the enclosure of Miller Park, Lynchburg, and Captain Radford was made colonel of the regiment, John S. Lang- horne was elected captain of the Lynchburg company and Mr. Blackford its first lieu- tenant. Here they were constantly drilled and their equipment improved until the 3rd of May, 1861, when they were ordered to the seat of war around Manassas Junction, to join the army of Northern Virginia, organizing under General G. T. Beauregard. About sunrise they broke up their camp and started, each companj- with over one hun- dred well-armed and well-mounted men, and slowly wended their way through town, fol- lowed by sorrowing friends and relatives, fording James river about where the dam at Scott's mill now stands. Of that fine body of men, not one-half ever returned.

The evening before — Sunday — he had bid- den farewell to his wife and two children and said good-bye to his father and mother — the fourth of their sons to go to the war. The fifth was then in camp with the Rock- bridge artillery.

These two cavalry companies marched from Lynchburg to Manassas Junction,

thence to Centreville and on to Fairfax Court House, where they remained until the battle of Manassas, taking active part there on the 2 1 St, charging the enemy as they re- tired and aiding in the capture of many cannon, wagons and other stores and am- munition. Mr. Blackford had once before been under fire when commanding a small force of cavalry in a skirmish at Vienna, on the Loudoun & Hampshire railroad, but Manassas was his first battle. A week or two afterward he was elected captain of the company to succeed Captain Langhorne, then made major of the regiment, and through all his after life he was called "Cap- tain Blackford."

All during the summer and fall of 1861, they performed the usual duties of cavalry on the outposts. The day after the battle of Ball's Blufif, Loudoun county, the com- pany was ordered to Leesburg to reenforce General Evans. Three other companies of the regiment soon joined them and wintered there, doing heavy outpost and scouting duty. Much of this winter he was in com- mand of all four companies, his ranking officers being often absent on account of sickness and other duties.

\\'hen General Johnston broke up the lines of which Manassas was the point of supply, and retired towards Gordonsville, the Sec- ond Virginia Cavalry was used to cover the change of base. For four weeks of March and April, 1862, in bad weather and worse roads, they engaged in marching and counter marching, fighting and watching, separated from their baggage and without army com- forts. With no tents, no clothes, no cooking utensils, nothing to make camp life even one-tenth as comfortable as usual, they suf- fered discomforts hard to imagine.

On the reorganization of the company in May, 1862, he was reelected captain. The regiment followed Jackson in his famous campaign down the valley, but Captain Blackford was left behind with typhoid fever, and finally taken home. He did not recover in time to be in the seven days' fighting arou'id Richmond, but in those en- gagements the cavalry took little part. He joined the army again shortly afterward and at once moved up to Gordonsville with Jack- son and was with him at the battle of Slaughter's Mountain. He took a very active part there, as well as in the rest of that bloody campaign, winding up with the