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John Bowie Gray Virginia Military Institute Class of 1867 Contributed By: Sarah Reveley John Bowie Gray, the son of John Bowie Gray and Jane Moore Cave, was born May 30, 1846 at the family home, Travellers’ Rest, in Stafford County, Virginia.
After receiving an education at Fredericksburg Academy, Gray entered the University of North Carolina for two months, but was then accepted as a state cadet at Virginia Military Institute. He entered VMI on September 29, 1863 from Fredericksburg, Virginia. During the Battle of New Market on May 15, 1864, he was in the cadet battalion as a private in Company D.
Photo from VMI Archives Gray later related that he had switched places in line with another cadet who was killed in the fighting. He lost his cap during the battle, but found it again as the cadets were preparing to leave. Showing their youth during battle, Gray said that while the cadets were lying behind a stone wall at one point in the battle, and shot, shell and small arms fire roared overhead, the youngsters amused themselves by throwing stones at their frightened comrades. After the battle, he remained with the VMI cadet corps in the trenches at Richmond and at the Alms House. In 1866, he lost his state cadetship, creating financial difficulty, but he returned after the war to complete his studies and graduate. He finished 9th of 11 graduates in an original class of 295 (181 were later declared honorary graduates).
After the war, Gray returned to the family home Travellers’ Rest, where he remained in the family business as a farmer and stockraiser for the rest of his life. The farm produced “Pure-bred Jersey and Short Horn Cattle...Pure Cotswold Sheep...and Registered Poland China Swine” which were shipped to Germany and Cuba in addition to the US southern states.
In 1870, he married Mary Hunter, daughter of Major Bushrod Washington Hunter of Alexandria. The Reverend Randolph McKim performed the marriage ceremony.They had four children, including Mary, Janie, and Aylmer.
His family home had been known for its hospitality for generations, bearing the words “Enter ye weary, no matter whence you came and whither you go, and have rest.”
John Bowie Gray remained loyal to VMI, and one of his children reported to Joseph Anderson, Jr. that “every incident and detail connected with the Virginia Military Institute was dear to his heart.” Gray was concerned he wouldn’t be able to go to the semi-centennial in 1889 because it was the farm’s busy season. In about 1896, Gray unsuccessfully inquired of VMI Superintendent Scott Shipp, his old commander at New Market, as to whether a state cadetship might be procured for his son, then 17 years old. He related that his property values had deteriorated, and that he could barely pay his son’s expenses. His son did not attend VMI.
He wrote in 1914: “It is most gratifying to its Alumni, to note the high standard to which the Institute has been raised under your [superintendent’s] management, especially is this noteworthy to those who have seen the Institute in its ashes, when the numbers of the New Market Battallion [sic] that reported for duty “after the war” could be counted on your fingers, when we first boarded around town, then in cabins under the hill, and lastly in one wing of the barracks with uniforms for only two companies.”
His wife Jane Gray died in 1920, and Gray died at his home on October 8, 1930. After Gray’s death, Travellers’ Rest, unfortunately built on a sand foundation, deteriorated and eventually collapsed. His brother Robert used the bricks from Traveller’s Rest to construct a wing for Eastwood, his home adjacent to John’s. The only remaining traces of evidence of “Travellers’ Rest” are some trees and the family burial lot, long neglected but recently restored.
The VMI museum has several item’s belonging to John Bowie Gray – textbooks, a spent bullet from the New Market battle, and some buttons. A scholarship and an academic award at VMI were later created in his honor for the first-standing cadet third classman in civil engineering. Bibliography: Virginia Military Institute archives The VMI New Market Cadets by Couper Progressive Generation Not For Fame Or Reward: VMI’s Civil War Soldiers and Sailors by Albert Z. Conner (Extract from final draft) Research by New Market Graves Project Team |
