Colonel Fulkerson commanding. With this regiment he served in the disastrous Laurel Hill campaign in West Virginia, in the summer of 1861, and after the retreat to Monterey joined General Jackson's command in December at Winchester. In 1862 he was promoted third lieutenant of his company in recognition of his faithful and gallant service. He participated in the campaign of 1862 in the valley of the Shenandoah under Gen. Stonewall Jackson, and subsequently shared the battles and marches of the corps of that general in the Maryland and Virginia campaigns, including the battles of Harper's Ferry, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Subsequently, in Edward Johnson's division, he fought at Gettysburg and Mine Run, and was a participant in the bloody fighting in the Wilderness, May, 1864, until captured by the enemy. He was then carried as a prisoner of war to Point Lookout, moved from there to Fort Delaware, and in August transferred to Morris island, South Carolina, where with six hundred other Confederate officers he was held under the fire of Confederate batteries, this being the Federal retaliation for the holding of some Federal prisoners in the city of Charleston. In October he was taken to Fort Pulaski, and thence, in March, 1865, was returned to Fort Delaware, where he was detained until June, 1865. At the end of his imprisonment the hardships and short rations with which he had been afflicted had reduced his weight from 160 to 96 pounds. The war being now past, he engaged in farming at Glade Spring and continued to be thus employed until October, 1897, when he embarked in the livery business in the town.
Vernon I'Anson, a well-known minister of the Baptist church, now stationed at Emporia, Va., is a member of a family long conspicuous for patriotism and valiant service, both in their native land beyond the sea and in America. The ancestry of his family is traced to Sir James I'Anson, who commanded the navy built by Henry VIII. "The line in America was established by Dr. John I'Anson, a son of Sir Thomas I'Anson, lord keeper of the Tower, at London, who after being disowned by his father on account of his sympathy with the American colonists, crossed the Atlantic and gave his fortune and services to their cause during the Revolution. His son, M. D. I'Anson, was a manufacturer and prominent citizen of Petersburg, served as an officer in the war of 1812, and held the office of mayor of his city. He married Jane, daughter of Dr. William I. Thornton, a soldier of the war of 1812, whose father, Sterling C. Thornton, a wealthy and prominent planter, was an officer in the Revolutionary army; and whose grandfather served in the French and Indian wars under Washington. Springing from such parentage it was natural that the I'Anson brothers should embrace with chivalrous devotion the cause of the South in her struggle for independence. Five sons of M. D. and Jane I'Anson were connected with the Confederate service. Maj. William Harrison I'Anson, who had served as surgeon with the rank of major in the Mexican war, and was a messmate of Maj. Jubal A. Early, had charge of the quartermaster-general's department of Florida, with headquarters at Tallahassee, throughout the war, and survived until 1875. Richard W. I'Anson, M. D., held the rank of surgeon in Stuart's cavalry division of the army of Northern Virginia, and was wounded at the
