Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/642

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VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

the line of defence was ordered to be con- structed and Major Douglas was placed in charge of this work where he remained for about a year. Later he was promoted lieu- tenant-colonel of en'gineers, and assigned as chief engineer of the Trans-Mississippi De- partment under General E. Kirby Smith. He was then promoted colonel of engineers and remained with General Smith until the close of the war. After the return of peace Colonel Douglas went with Colonel Andrew Talcott to Mexico, and was engaged in con- structing the railroad from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico, remaining there about two. years. Returning to the United States, he assisted in the construction of a railroad from Louisville, Kentucky, to Cincinnati, Ohio. After its completion General Doug- las was made its chief engineer. Afterwards he accepted a position on the Texas Pacific Railroad, later called the Transcontinental Railroad. Subsequently he was a member of the Corps of Engineers with Major Henry D. Whitcomb, which constructed the Chesa- peake & Ohio Railroad, from Huntingdon to Kanawha Falls. He then joined Colonel T. M. R. Talcott on the Richmond & Dan- ville Railroad, and was afterward chief en- gineer and superintendent of the road from Richmond to West Point, Virginia, and chief engineer of the Richmond & Danville Railroad until 1883. General Douglas has written various papers on engineering. He wrote a sketch of the life of General Ma- gruder, and one also of General John B. Hood of the Army of Northern Virginia.

The brothers and sisters of General Doug- las were: i. Dr. William Walter Douglas, of Warsaw, Richmond county, Virginia, who was a graduate of William and Mary Col- lege and of the Richmond Medical College. He served in the Confederate army as a surgeon in General Jackson's and General Stuart's corps. 2. John Beverly, who died when young. 3. James Malcolm, of Balti- more, Maryland, an engineer. 4. Robert Bruce, lawyer, deceased. 5. Elizabeth J., deceased, married Walter Weir, of Man- assas, Virginia. 6. Mary, deceased, mar- ried Edward Spotswood Pollard, of Zoar, King William county, Virginia. 7. Lucy, deceased, who married Colonel James John- son, of King William county, Virginia.

General Douglas found among his papers an interesting bit of paper, evidentlv torn from a note book, on which was written

in the handwriting of General Robert E. Lee, an order to General Joseph E. John- ston, then commanding the Army of North- ern Virginia, directing Captain Henry Thompson Douglas of the Corps of Engi- neers then on the staff of General Magruder, to report to General Lee at Richmond, Vir- ginia, and endorsed in their own handwrit- ing by Generals Joseph E. Johnston and J. B. Magruder. This paper has been filed in the Confederate Museum at Richmond, Vir- ginia. On reporting to General Lee he was ordered to locate and construct the defences of Chafin's Bluflf, on the north side of the James river about half a mile below Drury's Bluflf. He constructed these defences, mounting eight guns of the largest calibre, bearing upon the river, and forming a part of the defences of Richmond, Virginia.

Henry T. Douglas married, June 9, 1868, Anne Matilda, born in Philadelphia, Penn- sylvania, in 1852, daughter of Edward Rob- bins, of Philadelphia.

Lysander B. Conway, Jr. The arms of Colonel Edwin Conway, a descendant of Edwin Conway, the founder of the family in Virginia, are preserved in his seal to several documents extant in Virginia State Archives and the records of Lancaster county, Vir- ginia. The impression on each is the same : "Sable on a bend argent, cotised ermine a rose gules between two amulets of the last." Crest : "A moor's head side faced proper, banded round the temples argent and azure." Motto: "Fide et Amore."

Edwin Conway came to Virginia from Worcester county, England, in 1640, and ap- pears in Northampton records in June, 1642, as "Mr. Edwyn Conway, Clarke of this com." In the first grant of land in his name he is recorded as "Edwyn Conoway of Northamp- ton, Clarke." He became a large land- owner, and by his first wife, Martha Elton- head, whom he married in England, had two sons, Edwin (2) and Eltonhead, from whom the families of Conway, in Virginia, descend. Lieutenant James Conway, great-great- grandfather of Lysander B. Conway, of Danville, Virginia, was an officer of the rev- olution, killed at the battle of Trenton, New Jersey, December 28, 1776. His son, Chris- topher Conway, was the father of James Washington Conway, whose son, Lysander B. Conway, is the father of Lysander B. Conway, Jr.