Donald, distinguished in the early organization of Confederate forces in the lower Shenandoah valley, who raised the regiment which was the nucleus of Ashby's cavalry command. Five other sons of Colonel McDonald, as well as two sons-in-law, entered the Confederate service. Few families were more distinguished and none more thoroughly devoted to the cause of Southern independence. In the quiet years preceding the great war, Captain McDonald was educated at the university of Virginia, taking the master's degree, after which he accepted the position of professor of rhetoric and principal of the high school at Louisville, Ky. That position he subsequently resigned to enter upon the practice of law at Charlestown, Jefferson county, which was his occupation when the swift current of events in 1861 swept the Old Dominion into the great Confederacy of the South. He enlisted on April 19, 1861, as a private in a company which became Company G of the Second Virginia infantry, and was assigned to the brigade of Gen. T. J. Jackson, soon to become famous as "Stonewall" through the firm stand made by his men under his command at the battle of Manassas. Private McDonald took part in that engagement and continued with the Second regiment a year, after which he was transferred to the engineer corps, with the rank of second lieutenant. Soon afterward resigning that position, he joined Company D of the Eleventh Virginia cavalry, a command with which he served one year, participating in the cavalry operations under Gen. Turner Ashby in the valley and the battles of Slaughter Mountain and Sharpsburg. He was then promoted captain of artillery and assigned to ordnance duty, in which he continued until the end of the struggle. Subsequent battles in which he participated were Gettysburg and the second day's fight in the Wilderness, May 6, 1864, when he received a severe wound in the side. He returned to his profession of teaching after the close of hostilities, and, after conducting a boarding school in Clarke county three years, was recalled to his former position of superintendent of the Louisville high school, which he held for four years. This position he resigned to establish the Rugby school at Louisville, which he conducted with much success for seventeen years. After that he was in charge of the Shenandoah university school, established by him at Berryville, one of the best preparatory schools of the State. In conjunction with John S. Blackburn, of Alexandria, in 1867, Captain McDonald prepared and subsequently published a school history of the United States. For two years he edited the "Southern Bivouac," at Louisville, and at the time of his death, was engaged in writing a history of Ashby's cavalry. He was a member of J. E. B. Stuart camp, No. 24, at Berryville. In 1867 he was married to Miss Catherine S. Gray, of Leesburg, and they had eight children. The eldest son, William N. McDonald, Jr., is a civil engineer of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis railroad. Captain McDonald died at his home in Berryville in 1897.
George W. R. McDonell, of Portsmouth, Va., a veteran of the Portsmouth light artillery, is a native of that city, born in 1844. On April 17, 1861, he enlisted in the Light Artillery, then the oldest artillery company in Virginia, with a record of gallant service at the battle of Craney Island in 1812. Under Capt. Cary F.
