Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/341

 General Junius Daniel. 341

J. R. J. Daniel, who was elected Attorney-General of North Carolina in the year 1834, and afterwards represented his district in the Con- gress of the United States several terms.

He was a cousin of Judge Daniel, who was appointed March 2, 1815, judge of the Superior Court of North Carolina and elected judge of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1832. His mother was a Miss Stith.

He was the last surviving issue of his father. Blessed with a con- stitution of great original vigor, he gave promise in the early years of his life of those powers of endurance which were so necessary to the work he found next his hand to be done. His mother died when he was three years of age. Fortunately he had learned more these three years than he did any decade of his life thereafter. The teach- ing of this holy woman fell upon good soil and helped to make her son loathe dishonesty, insincerity, all violence to truth and every form of degrading vice.

His parents possessed every prime social virtue.

His education began with his grandfather and was carried forward with the youth in the most intelligent way then known to his people. He entered the excellent school of J. M. Lovejoy, who taught in this city many years and lies buried within bowshot of this hall, about the year 1843, and continued his pupil until admitted to the Military Academy at West Point, in 1846, to which he was appointed by President James K. Polk as one of the cadets at large.

He was compelled by severe injuries, accidently inflicted upon him while engaged in artillery practice, to interrupt his course at the Military Academy, and his course there was not completed until 1851.

He graduated with highly respectable standing in deportment and scholarship, and was ordered to Newport, Kentucky, as acting assis- tant quartermaster. He went to New Mexico under orders the fall of 1852, and was four years stationed at Forts Albuquerque, Fillmore and Stanton, where his time was spent diligently conducting such military parties as were committed to his care, in repelling the hostile incursions made by the Indians upon the country, and forcing those wild children of the plains to recognize the authority of the Govern- ment. He took part in many skirmishes with the Indians. He sedulously studied his profession, and became familiar with Jomini and others who wrote histories of the art of war. He was good to his men then. He returned to the States from New Mexico in 1857.

His father, with Anglo Saxon thirst for land, having acquired large landed possessions in Louisiana, the younger officer was induced to