Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1165

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CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.
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mortally wounded. About 2 o'clock of the following night he died in the field hospital, and his body was buried at a spot near by, until after the war, when it was removed to Oakwood cemetery, Portsmouth. Capt. E. W. Owens, oldest son of the foregoing, was born in Portsmouth in February, 1855. He and two younger children were orphaned by the death of their mother in 1861, and of their father in 1863. At the age of fifteen he found employment as a drug clerk, and seven years later he established an independent business in the same line of trade, which he has since conducted with gratifying success. He is an influential citizen, has served several years as chairman of the county Democratic committee, and for six years as school trustee; is an official member of the Owens memorial church, of Portsmouth, and is connected with several fraternal orders. When the Portsmouth Rifles were reorganized he became second lieutenant, and being promoted captain, held that rank about two years previous to the war with Spain, when he went to the front as captain of the Rifles, Company L, Second regiment Virginia volunteers.

Colonel William H. Palmer, of Richmond, distinguished in the army of Northern Virginia as adjutant-general and chief of staff of the Third army corps, was born at that city in 1835. Offering his services to the State early in the struggle he became on April 21, l861, the first lieutenant of Company D of the First Virginia infantry regiment. Soon afterward he was assigned the duties of adjutant, and at the reorganization in May, 1862, was promoted major, in which rank he commanded his regiment at the battle of Williamsburg. Previous to this he had already served as adjutant-general of the brigade of Gen. A. P. Hill, and during the Manassas campaign as adjutant-general of Longstreet's division. In October, 1862, he was transferred to the adjutant-general's department as chief of staff of Gen. A. P. Hill's light division of Jackson's corps of the army of Northern Virginia, as which he served until, after the battle of Chancellorsville and the death of General Jackson, the Third army corps was formed and Gen. A. P. Hill placed in command, when he remained with his former commander as adjutant-general and chief of staff of the Third army corps, through the campaign from the Wilderness to Petersburg, the defense of the capital, and the retreat to Appomattox. During his service he participated in all the battles of the army of Northern Virginia, except the early affairs before Richmond, following the battle of Williamsburg, where he was wounded and disabled; and the battle of Gettysburg, at the time of which he was disabled from a wound received at Chancellorsville when in front of the lines, immediately between Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson and the enemy. Returning to Richmond after the surrender, he re-engaged in the business of civil life, and becoming successful in financial affairs is now accounted one of the leading bankers of the city. He is a member of both Lee and Pickett camps, U. C. V.

Lieutenant John T. Parham, of Petersburg, a veteran of the Thirty-second Virginia infantry regiment, is a native of Prince George county, born in 1842. His father, Henry Parham, for some time clerk of the county of Prince George, was in the Confederate service first as a courier for Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, and later was on service at the Confederate States arsenal until the