Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 33.djvu/115

 Personal Experiences of Malvern Hill. Ill

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES IN TAKING UP ARMS AND IN THE BATTLE OF MAL- VERN HILL.

GETTYSBURG PICKETT'S CHARGE.

Addresses by James F. Crocker, Before Stonewall Camp

Confederate Veterans, Portsmouth, Va., February

6, 1889, and November 7, 1894,

[The following articles from the unmistakable sincerity of the author, as from his heart the fount directive of his being, and in logical rights not to be defined in sophistry expresses purely the animus of the Confederate soldier. It is no less a duty than a pleasure to embody them in this serial.

The Address, "Gettysburg Pickett's Charge," about which so much has been published, in rival claims as to precedence in merit in the charge, and as to faults conspiring to thwart the plans of a consummate soldier and peerless leader, that farther dissension should be deprecated.

It has never been my privilege to meet Judge Crocker, but his brother, by the second marriage of his mother, Hon. Richard S. Thomas, of Smithfield, I have had cause to rejoice in the friendship of for years. They come of worthy life-springs in an ancestry dating to the settlement of "Ould Virginia."

James Francis Crocker, the second son ot James and Frances Hill (Woodtey) Crocker, was born January 5th, 1828; was graduated from Pennsylvania College, at Gettysburg, in the class of 1850, and was its Valedictorian; for a time was a teacher, latterly as Professor of Mathematics at Madison College, Penn. ; studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1854.

Was elected to the House of Delegates from Isle of Wight county and served the session 1855-6; became a member of the law firm of Godwin & Crocker, Portsmouth, Va., in 1856, and continued in successful practice, until it was dissolved by the election of the partners respectively to be Judges of the Corporation Courts of the cities of Norfolk, and of Portsmouth, Va.

Judge Crocker resigned in 1906.