dy Station, in June, 1863,
he was most severely wounded, and taken to the residence of Gen. William
C. Wickham, in Hanover County, where he was made a prisoner by a raiding
party, and was carried off, at the expense of great personal suffering,
to Fort Monroe. From the latter place he was conveyed to Fort Lafayette,
where he was confined until March, 1864, and treated with great
severity, being held, with Capt. R.H. Tyler, of the Eighth Virginia
Regiment, under sentence of death, as hostages for two Federal officers
who were prisoners in Richmond, and whom it was thought would be
executed for some retaliatory measure.
Exchanged in the spring of 1864, he returned, to find his young wife and
children dead, his beautiful home burned to the ground, his whole estate
devastated and laid waste by the ruthless hand of war; and yet almost
his first act on reaching Richmond was to go to Libby Prison, visit the
two Federal officers for whom he had been held as hostage, and who, like
himself, had been under apprehension of being hung, and shake hands with
and congratulate them.
Immediately joining his command, he led his division in every engagement
from the Rapidan to Appomattox, where, with his father, the greatest
soldier of modern times, he surrendered to the inevitable.
In a letter written by one of the most brilliant cavalry generals of the
late war, in speaking of Gen. W.H.F. LEE, he uses this language:
He was a zealous, conscientious, brave, and intelligent soldier,
who fully discharged all of his duties. He was one of those safe,
sound, judicious officers, and you always felt when you sent
instructions to him that they were going to be obeyed promptly and
to the letter.
What greater tribute could be paid a soldier?
Having been married to one of the most accomplished ladies in Virginia,
Miss Bolling, of Petersburg (who, with two sons, survives him) he
removed in 1874 to Ravensworth, and was the next year elected to the
senate of Virginia, where he made an honorable record.
He was elected to the Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses, and served
his State with that fidelity which had characterized his every act
through life--faithful, conscientious, and painstaking--ever alert to
the interests of his constituents and seeking only how he could serve
them.
He was again reelected to the Fifty-second Congress, and though by the
will of Divine Providence he was not permitted to take his seat
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