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[Pages 365-366]
Putnam, Sarah A. (Brock), born at Madison, Virginia, about 1840,
second daughter of Ansalem and Elizabeth Beverley (Buckner) Brock. Through both parents she is
descended from Robert Beverley, the immigrant, and her family line runs through many names
prominent in the colonial and revolutionary history of her native state, including that of John
Chew, of Jamestown (1622). In her girlhood her father removed with his family to the University
of Virginia at Charlottesville, and subsequently to Richmond. Her education was conducted by her
father and she was for four years under the preceptorship of a Harvard graduate. She began her
literary career in 1866, adopting the pseudonym, Virginia Madison. In 1876 she published
"Richmond During the War," and in 1868 appeared "The Southern Amaranth," a compilation of war
poetry of the south. These were followed by "The Domestic Missionary Catechism" (1872) and
"Kenneth, My King," a novel of social life in Virginia before the civil war (1872). She was one
of the two female contributors to "Picturesque America" (1874). An article entitled "The Fine
Arts in Richmond," written for the "Home Journal of New York City, was copied in "Il
Cosmopolita," a journal published in Rome, Italy, and printed in Italian, English, French and
Spanish. Mrs. Putnam has traveled extensively, and in 1891, with her husband, visited Egypt,
Palestine, Turkey, Greece, Syria, and several islands and cities in the eastern Levant. Her minor
contributions to the press include editorials, descriptive and historical articles, review,
essays, letters, sketches of travel, short stories, biographies, compositions in verse and
translations from the French. In 1893 she published a richly illustrated compilation entitled
"American Poets in their Favorite Poems," which in its inception received the indorsement of
William Cullen Bryant. She was married at Richmond, Virginia, January 11, 1882, to Rev. Richard
F. Putnam, of Boston.
[Pages 366-377]
Hutcheson, Joseph Chappell, Sr., was born in Mecklenburg county,
Virginia, May 18, 1842. His father, Charles Sterling Hutcheson, was born in Mecklenburg county,
Virginia, April 14, 1804, and died there March 22, 1881; married Mary Mitchell Hutcheson,
November 12, 1823. He was a planter and a member of the Virginia legislature; the son of Joseph
and Rebecca (Neblett) Hutcheson, daughter of Sterling Neblett and his wife,
Chappell, of Lunenburg county, Virginia; this Joseph Hutcheson was the son of Charles and Frances
Collier (Gaines) Hutcheson; and this Charles Hutcheson was the son of Peter Hutcheson of Caroline
county, Virginia, and his wife, who was Miss Collier. His mother was Mary Mitchell (Hutcheson)
Hutcheson, born in Mecklenburg county, Virginia, August 12, 1806, and died there, March 9, 1895.
She was a daughter of John Hutcheson, Jr., (born April 7, 1772; married September 10, 1801), and
his second wife, Mary Jones Sugget (nee Jones). John Hutcheson, Jr., was the son of John and
Elizabeth (Childs) Hutcheson, of Caroline county, Virginia. Joseph Chapel Hutcheson, Sr., the
subject of this sketch, was graduated at Randolph-Macon College in 1861. In the civil war he
entered the Confederate service as a private in Company C, Twenty-first Virginia Regiment. He
studied law at the University of Virginia, and was graduated there in 1866. He then went to
Texas, and began the practice of law in Grimes county. In 1874 he removed to Houston, and entered
into partnership with W. A. Carrington. He served as a member of the Texas legislature in 1880;
was chairman of the state Democratic convention of 1890; he was elected to the fifty-third, and
re-elected to the fifty-fourth United States congress as a Democrat. He declined the re-election
for a third term. Mr. Hutcheson is now the senior member of one of the most prominent law firms
in Texas; he is also prominent in both political and business circles; he combines in a most
happy degree those two great talents, so rarely found united in the same man dep thought
and ready speech. Though one of the most fluent and eloquent speakers known to the Texas bar, he
has ever accorded diligent study to his profession. He married (first) in 1867, Mildred
Carrington, daughter of Dr. W. Fountain and Elizabeth (Venable) Carrington, of Virginia; married
(second) Mrs. Betty Palmer Milby, widow of Edward Milby. She was Harriet Elizabeth Palmer,
daughter of Judge Edward A. and Martha Winifred (Branch) Palmer, of Virginia.
[Page 367]
Payne, John Barton, born at Prunytown, Taylor county, Virginia,
January 26, 1855, son of Dr. Amos Payne and Elizabeth Barton Smith, both natives of Fauquier
county, Virginia. His great-grandfather, Francis Payne, was an officer in the continental army.
he was educated at Orleans, Virginia, and began business life as clerk in a store at Warrenton,
Virginia, at times acting as assistant in the office of the county clerk of Taylor county;
meantime he read law, and was admitted to the bar in 1870. he early became interested in
politics, and acted as chairman of the Democratic committee of Taylor county in the Tilden and
Hendricks campaign, and was a frequent delegate to senatorial and congressional district
conventions. In 1877 he removed to Kingwood, Preston county, West Virginia, where he came to a
place of prominence at the bar and in political affairs. He afterwards removed to Chicago,
Illinois, and became judge of the superior court, and president of the Chicago Law Institute.
[Pages 367-368]
Bruce, Philip Alexander, born at Staunton Hill, Charlotte county,
Virginia, March 7, 1856, son of Charles Bruce and Sarah Seddon, his wife. His education was
commenced under private tuition at his own home, which was supplied with one of the finest
libraries in the state, and was continued at Norwood school, Nelson county, from whence he went
to the University of Virginia. There he devoted especial attention to English studies, and was
for a time one of the editors of the university magazine. He was a convincing and forceful
speaker, and was awarded the debater's medal of the Jefferson Society. Two years were then spent
in the study of law at Harvard University, from which he received his degree as Bachelor of Laws.
He became the associate editor of the "Richmond Times" about 1890, and about 1892 became
corresponding secretary of the Virginia Historical Society, remaining the incumbent of this
office until his resignation in 1898, in order to continue his colonial research work in England.
He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws from William and Mary College in 1907. In the field
of literature he has achieved an eminent reputation, and is the author of: "Economic History of
Virginia in the Seventeenth Century," "The Plantation Negro as a Freeman," "Rise of the New
South," "Social Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century," "Life of Gen. R. E. Lee," and
"Short History of the United States." He has also written many articles of a high standard for
English and American periodicals.
[Page 368]
Munford, Beverley Bland, born in Richmond, Virginia, September 10,
1856, son of John D. Munford and Margaret N. Copland, his wife. He was brought up on a farm near
Institute, Virginia. He attended William and Mary College, in that city, but was not able to
remain to graduation. He was, however, an industrious reader, paying especial attention to
history and biography, and he had a retentive memory. He inherited a predisposition for the law,
from his father and grandfather, and attended lectures in the law department of the University of
Virginia. In 1878 he entered upon the practice of his profession at Chatham, Pittsylvania county,
where his brilliant qualities soon brought him into favorable notice, and he was elected to the
house of delegates, where, by successive re-elections, he served for a period of six years. In
1884 he was a presidential elector on the Cleveland ticket. In 1882 he removed to Richmond,
where, in association with a law partner, Waller R. Staples, he cared for an extensive legal
business. After ten years this partnership was terminated by the death of Judge Staples, and two
years later he became associated with Eppa Hunton, Jr., Edmund Randolph Williams and Henry W.
Anderson, in the firm of Munford, Hunton, Williams & Anderson a firm strong in the
department of corporation law, and serving as retained counsel for many banks, and insurance,
railroad and street railway companies. Mr. Munford was one of the founders and the first
president of the South Atlantic Live Insurance Company, and became a director of the Bank of and
the Merchant's National Bank, both of Richmond. A man of lofty literary tastes and rare
capability as a writer, he is the author of two highly meritorious works "Random
Recollections," and "Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and Secession," the latter being a most
powerful vindication of his state. He has also made many addresses before leading literary
societies. He was elected to membership in the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity, and is a member of the
Virginia Historical Society, and of the Westmoreland Club of Richmond. He was a vestryman of St.
Paul's Church, Richmond. He married, November 22, 1893, Mary Cooke Branch, of Richmond, who is
one of the most active members of the Co-operative Education Association.
[Pages 368-369]
Williams, Lewis Burwell, born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, January
27, 1802, son of William Clayton Williams and Alice Burwell, his wife. When he was six years of
age his parents removed to Richmond, where he received his education and studied law, on being
admitted to the bar, he engaged in practice in /culpeper county, in 1825 removing to Orange y,
where he resided during the remainder of his life. In 1831 he was appointed commonwealth's
attorney, which office he occupied, by successive reappointments and elections, until his death,
in 1880 a period of forty-nine years. He was a member of the Virginia legislature in 1831.
He was an anti-secession candidate for the convention of 1861, and was defeated by Jeremiah
Morton, a pronounced secessionist, but when secession was an accomplished fact, he became an
ardent supporter of the southern cause, and all his four sons entered the Confederate army.
[Page 369]
Parks, Marshall, born in Norfolk, Virginia, November 8, 1820, son
of Marshall Parks, a famous steamboat owner, and Martha Boush, his wife. He left school at the
age of fifteen to accompany his father to his grist and lumber mills in North Carolina, and
before he had attained his majority was postmaster and major of militia. After his father's
death, he gave himself largely to steamboat enterprises, and built an iron steam vessel, the
Albemarle, which was famous in its day. In 1842 he was given command of the Germ,
built at Norfolk, by the government, and which he sailed by bay, rivers and canals, from the
Atlantic coast to Oswego, on Lake Ontario, in the first trip made by a steam vessel between the
Atlantic and Great Lakes. He was the author of the method of ferrying railroad cars across rivers
and bays, on specially constructed boats with iron rails set upon the deck. He was also the
originator of the Albemarle and Chesapeake canal the first in which steam dredges were
used in construction, in place of ordinary picks and shovels and he was president of the
operating company for upwards of twenty-five years. In 1861, after the secession of Virginia, he
was made state provisional commodore, and charged with the removal of more than three thousand
pieces of artillery from the Norfolk navy yard to a place of safety. He was then appointed a
special commissioner of Virginia to create a navy, and was well along with the construction of
several gunboats, when he was ordered to turn them over to the Confederate government, and he
delivered them to Gens. Gwinn and Huger, at Norfolk. His years forbade heavy responsibilities,
and from that time on his service to the Confederacy was in an advisory capacity only. After the
war, he busied himself with railroad, steamboat and canal enterprises; served one term in the
legislature; and under President Cleveland's administration, was for four years a supervising
inspector of steamboats. He married, in 1855, Sophia Jackson.
[Pages 369-370]
Crenshaw, William G., born in Richmond, Virginia, July 7, 1824,
son of Spotswood Dabney Crenshaw and Winifred Graves, his wife, daughter of Isaac Graves. He was
a man of great ability, and at the age of thirty-seven years was senior member of Crenshaw &
Company, whose business extended over a large part of the world, much of their foreign trade
being carried on in vessels built and owned by himself and his brothers. When Virginia seceded,
he forsook his business and recruited a company of artillery, providing its guns and equipment at
his own expense, and which became famous as "Crenshaw's Battery." He bore a gallant part in every
engagement from Mechanicsville to Sharpsburg, in 1863, when he was sent to Europe as a
confidential commercial agent for the Confederate government, a position which he held until the
end of the war. He was remarkably successful in his mission, not only shipping to the southern
ports great quantities of ordnance, ammunition, clothing, provisions, etc. but also securing the
building of vessels for their transporting them, as well as a number of successful privateers.
After the war, he remained in Europe on business of his own until 1868, when he returned home.
Among the enterprises with which he became associated was, in connection with his sons, the
mining of pyrites, and its use for the manufacture of sulphuric acid, for which he erected in
Richmond the first furnace in this country for that purpose, his process revolutionizing the
manufacture of sulphuric acid in the United States. He married Fanny Elizabeth Graves, of Orange
county. He died May 24, 1897, about fourteen months after the death of his wife.
[Page 370]
Goode, Thomas F., born in Roanoke county, Virginia, in 1827, son
of Dr. Thomas Goode. He was educated in the old field schools, and the Episcopal high school at
Alexandria; studied law under Judge Edward R. Chambers, of Boydton, and was admitted to the bar
in 1848. Previous to the civil war he was commonwealth's attorney. He was a member of the
convention of 1861, and when Virginia seceded, he organized a cavalry company, of which he was
made captain, and which became part of the Third Virginia Cavalry Regiment, in which he rose
through the various grades to the colonelcy. In 1862 he was under Stuart, who awarded him high
praise for his soldierly qualities. After the battle of Seven Pines, he was recommended for
promotion to brigadier-general, but was obliged to leave the service in the legislature in
1863-64 for a short time. After the war, he resumed his law practice, but discontinued it in
1875, and took a leading part in the development of the Buffalo lithia springs. He married Rosa
C. Chambers, daughter of Edward R. Chambers.
[Pages 370-371]
Smith, Francis Henry, born in Leesburg, Virginia, October 14,
1829, son of Daniel Grove Smith, Esq., a merchant of Leesburg, who subsequently moved to
Albemarle county, and Eleanor Buckey, of Frederick, Maryland, his wife. On both sides he is
descended from early colonial settlers, his grandfather, Henry Smith, of Frederick, Maryland,
having served in the war of 1812. He was educated in private schools at Leesburg, Virginia, and
at the Leesburg Academy. He was sent to the college at the Wesleyan College of Middletown,
Connecticut, but at the time of his entering the senior class political disturbances prevented
his return. In 1849 he entered the University of Virginia, and in 1851 graduated with the degree
of Master of Arts. He was immediately appointed assistant instructor in mathematics, which
position he held for two years. In 1853 he was elected professor of natural philosophy, to
succeed Professor William B. Rogers, who had resigned and removed to Boston, and this position
Professor Smith held continuously until 1909, when he was made professor emeritus, and placed on
the Carnegie foundation. To him, as much as to any of the remarkable men who have taught in the
University of Virginia, is due its great reputation for thoroughness and scholarship. Added to
this, his charming personality, his genial manners and his eloquence as a lecturer, have done
much to perpetuate the old régime in the university. At the outbreak of the civil war he
was elected by the Confederate congress commissioner of weights and measures, in association with
Commodore Maury. He has contributed frequently to the magazines and journals of the country, and
has written "The Outlines of Physics," "Christ and Science," and "Thoughts on the Discord and
Harmony of Science and the Bible." While at the Wesleyan University as a student, he was a member
of the Eclectic Society. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa of Wesleyan University, having been
elected in 1851, after his graduation at the University of Virginia. He married, July 21, 1853,
Mary Stuart Harrison, daughter of Professor Gessner Harrison, and has four children living; Dr.
George Tucker Smith, Esq., an artist in New York; Mrs. Eleanor Kent, the wife of Professor
Charles W. Kent, of the University of Virginia; and Mrs. Rosalie Harrison, wife of Dr. I. C.
Harrison, of Clarksville, Virginia.
[Page 371]
Wood, John Taylor, born at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, in 1831, son
of Surgeon-General Robert C. Wood, U. S. A.; his mother was a daughter of President Zachary
Taylor, and sister of the first wife of President Jefferson Davis. He entered the United States
navy as a midshipman in 1847, and during the Mexican war served on the Ohio and
Brandywine. In 1861, he was on duty at the Naval Academy at Annapolis as assistant professor
of seamanship and gunnery. Virginia having seceded, he at once resigned his commission, and
entering the service of the state, was placed on duty with the Potomac river defensive batteries
at Evansport and Acquia Creek. On October 4, 1861, he was commissioned lieutenant in the
Confederate navy, and in January following was sent to the Virginia, then being prepared
for service, and he personally selected his crew from the soldiers of Magruder's command. In the
two days operations in Hampton Roads, he commanded
the aft-pivot gun of the Virginia, received the surrender of the Congress, and
bore Commodore Buchanan's verbal report to President Davis. After the destruction of the
Virginia, he commanded the sharp-shooters who compelled the withdrawal of the Federal fleet
from Drewry's Bluff. He was then called to the staff of President Davis, with the rank of colonel
of cavalry. He subsequently organized and led various boat expeditions on Chesapeake Bay and the
inland waters. He captured the transport Elmore, in the Potomac; and on Chesapeake Bay,
the ship Allegheny, the gunboats Satellite and Reliance; and the
transports Golden Rod, Coquette and Two Brothers; also the gunboat
Underwriter, on the Neuse river. For these achievements he received the thanks of the
Confederate congress, and was promoted to post captain. In August, 1864, he was given command of
the cruiser Tallahassee, and in a cruise to and from Halifax, captured thirty vessels.
Later he was offered the command of the James river squadron, which he declined. He personally
announced to President Davis the evacuation of Petersburg, and accompanied him in his journey
southward. When Mr. Davis was taken prisoner, Capt. Wood escaped, and with Gen. Breckenridge went
to Florida, and thence to Cuba. He subsequently took up his residence in Halifax.
[Pages 371-372]
Palmer, William H., born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1835. He
entered the Confederate army in April, 1861, as first lieutenant in the First Virginia Infantry
Regiment, and soon afterwards detailed as adjutant, and served as such to Gen. A. P. Hill, then a
brigade commander, and to Gen. Longstreet, commanding a division. In May, 1862, he was made
major, with which rank he commanded his regiment at the battle of Williamsburg. In October, 1862,
he became adjutant-general and chief-of-staff to Gen. A. P. Hill, who now commanded a division,
and held the same relationship to that officer when he became a corps commander. He was wounded
both at Williamsburg and Chancellorsville,, but served until the end of the war. After the war he
engaged in banking in Richmond.
[Page 372]
Stiles, Robert, born at Woodford, Kentucky, in 1836. He graduated
at Yale College in 1857, and was admitted to the bar. In the spring of 1861 he removed to
Richmond, and enlisted in the Richmond Howitzers immediately after the first Manassas, and with
which he served until after Chancellorsville. He was then made lieutenant if engineers, and
served as such under Early until after Gettysburg, when he was made adjutant of Cabell's
artillery battalion. In 1865 he was promoted to major, and with these he surrendered after
Sailor's Creek. Refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the United States government, he was held prisoner until October, 1865. After the war, he engaged in law
practice in Richmond.
[Text in red is my guess as to what was printed, where my copy of the
book shows a blank space.]
[Page 372]
Grimsley, Daniel A., born in Rappahannock county, Virginia, April
3, 1840, son of Rev. Barnett Grimsley. He was preparing for the law when the civil war broke out,
and he enlisted in April, 1861, in the Sixth Regiment Virginia Cavalry. He was soon made orderly
sergeant, in the spring of 1862 was elected captain, and in 1863 was promoted to major, and with
that rank commanded the regiment during the remainder of the war, serving in the valley campaign
under Jackson, and later under Stuart. After the war he concluded his law studies, was admitted
to the bar, and took up practice in Culpeper. He was a state senator, 1870-79, and in 1880 was
appointed judge of the sixth Virginia Judicial circuit. He married Bettie Browning, daughter of
William L. Browning.
[Pages 372-373]
Shipp, Scott, born in Fauquier county, Virginia, August 2, 1839.
As a lad he was a student at Westminster (Missouri) College, from which he went to study for a
year with an engineering party on the North Missouri Railroad. In 1859 he graduated with
distinction at the Virginia Military Institute, and was made assistant professor of mathematics,
to which Latin was added later. He resigned at the outbreak of the civil war, and was
commissioned lieutenant in the provisional army of Virginia, subsequently being advanced to a
captaincy. In the Confederate provisional army he was an assistant adjutant-general in the camp
of instruction at Richmond, and was later major of the Twenty-first Virginia Regiment, under Lee
in West Virginia, and Jackson in the Valley. He was wounded in the battle of Newmarket. In 1862
he was detailed to the Virginia Military Institute as commandant of cadets, with the rank of
lieutenant-colonel. After the war, he for some time retained the latter position, also studying
law at Washington College, and was admitted to the bar. In 1880 he was elected president of the
Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College, but declined, preferring to remain with the
institute. He was a member of the board of visitors to the United States in 1890, and president
of the board of visitors to the Naval Academy in 1894. In 1891 he received from Washington and
Lee University the degree of LL. D. He married a daughter of Arthur A. Morson, of Richmond.
[Page 373]
Robinson, Leigh, born in Richmond, Virginia, February 26, 1840,
son of Conway Robinson, lawyer and author, and Mary Susan Selden Leigh, his wife, daughter of
Hon. Benjamin Watkins and Susan (Colston) Leigh, his wife. At the outbreak of the civil war, he
was a student at the University of Virginia, which he left in the winter of 1862 to enlist in the
Second Howitzers company, from which he was transferred to the First Howitzers in March, 1864. He
fought in all the principal engagements from Yorktown to the surrender at Appomattox. After his
parole, he took up his residence in Washington City, where he became a lawyer. He married,
January 10, 1883, Alice Morson.
[Page 373]
Bidgood, Josephus Virginius, born at Portsmouth, Virginia, in
1841. when the civil war broke out, he was a student at Washington and Lee University, which he
at once left to enlist in the Thirty-second Virginia Infantry Regiment, with which he served
throughout the war, and participated in many of the most notable engagements. He was advanced to
sergeant-major, and after the battle of Five Forks was promoted to adjutant. At Sailors Creek he
was wounded and captured, and held prisoner until June 1865. He took up his residence in
Richmond, and became active in the national guard, rising to the rank of colonel of cavalry and
placed on the retired list on the completion of twenty years service. He resides in Richmond
where he is chief of the Bureau of Confederate Archives.
[Page 373]
Jones, Hilary P., was actively engaged as a teacher when Virginia
seceded. He at once entered the army, was commissioned major of artillery and served on Gen. D.
H. Hill's division, and was soon promoted to lieutenant-colonel. He especially distinguished
himself at Winchester, just before Gettysburg, where his masterly use of twenty pieces of
artillery won for him high praise from his superior officers. In the later operations, he held
the rank of colonel, and his service continued until the surrender at Appomattox, after which he
resumed teaching.
[Pages 373-374]
Moncure, James D., born in Richmond, Virginia, August 2, 1842, son
of Henry W. Moncure (a descendant of the grandfather of George Washington); in the maternal line
he was descended from John Ambler, aide-de-camp to Lafayette in the revolutionary war. He was
educated in Paris, and when the civil war was impending (1860) he came home from Europe, where he
had been a university student for eleven years, and had received a degree, and entered the
Virginia Military Institute. When the state seceded, he accompanied the cadets to Richmond, where
they performed duty, drilling volunteers. Soon afterwards he enlisted as a private in the Ninth
Virginia Cavalry Regiment, with which he served until the end, under the Lees, Stuart and
Hampton. He was taken prisoner at Chester's Gap, after Gettysburg, but soon made his escape. In
the charge at the battle of Aldie, his horse fell, and he sustained fractures of the skull and
collarbone, but soon recovered. After the war, he resumed medical studies at the universities of
Virginia and Maryland, graduating from the latter in 1867, and continued at the Medical of
College of Paris. Returning home he engaged in practice in Baltimore, and elsewhere. He finally
located in Richmond, where he became superintendent of the college infirmary, and in 1876 founded
the Pinnell Hospital, which he conducted until 1884, when he left it to accept the position of
superintendent of the Eastern Lunatic Asylum at Williamsburg. He married (first) in 1871, Ann
Patteson McCaw, daughter of Dr. James B. McCaw. He married (second) Blanche Elbert Trevilian,
daughter of Capt. C. B. Trevillian.