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ANIEL, JOHN WARWICK, senior United States senator from Virginia, and a native of that state, was born at Lynchburg on the fifth of September, 1842. He comes from a family distinguished in judicial and legislative circles, his grandfather, Judge William Daniel, having been a member of the General Court of Virginia, and his father, William Daniel, Jr., having been a judge of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and an orator of distinction. His mother, Sarah A. (Warwick) Daniel, was also of good Virginia descent.

At the opening of the Civil war Mr. Daniel, then in his nineteenth year, was still at his studies in Doctor Gessner Harrison's university school in Albemarle county, Virginia. He had previously passed through the Sophomore class of Lynchburg college (classical and military) and had been color sergeant of its corps of cadets. Inspired by devotion to the cause of his state, he immediately dropped his books to enlist as a private in the Confederate ranks. Soon after we find him serving as a second lieutenant and drill master of Company C, 27th Virginia infantry in the Stonewall brigade at the first battle of Bull Run and wounded twice in that engagement. In the following year, now as adjutant of the 11th Virginia infantry, he was again wounded, this time in the fight at Boonsboro, on the march to Antietam. On his recovery he was promoted major and appointed adjutant of General Early's division, and in this capacity he received his final and disabling wound in the sanguinary Battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864. With his leg shattered, he fell from his horse between the firing lines, where he would soon have bled to death had not a soldier assisted him, bandaging his leg with his sash. This most serious wound ended his military career and left him crippled for life.

After the war he chose the law as his profession, and while recovering from his wound, he took up a course of legal study at the University of Virginia, and in due time was admitted to the bar and entered upon practice at Lynchburg, in association with his father,