Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1297

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CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.
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London papers, remaining until the fall of Maximilian; from 1868 until his death in 1890, was a resident of Washington, D. C. His grandfather, Henry St. George Tucker, member of Congress, professor of law at the university of Virginia and president of the Virginia court of appeals, was the son of St. George Tucker, who came to Virginia from Bermuda, served as colonel in the Revolutionary war, and was wounded at Yorktown; was judge of the United States court, member of Congress, president of the court of appeals, and professor of law in William and Mary college. The first of the family in America was George Tucker, who came to Virginia from England in 1613, and went to Bermuda upon the appointment of his brother, Daniel, as governor-general of that colony. Dr. Tucker's mother, Jane S. Ellis, who is still living, is the daughter of Charles Ellis, of Richmond. Dr. Tucker received his early education in England and Switzerland while abroad with his father. In 1863 he came to America for the purpose of entering the Confederate service. Though arrested at Martinsburg in attempting to pass the Federal lines, he was detained but a short time and was soon able to reach Richmond, where he served for a time in the organizations for local defense, and then became a member of the Otey battery, of the Thirteenth Virginia artillery. He served in the subsequent career of that famous battery until the close of the war, surrendering at Lynchburg, four days after the general capitulation, his command having escaped from Appomattox on April 8th. In the succeeding fall he returned to his studies and spent one year at the university of Toronto, after which he taught school and studied law at Winchester, Va. Entering the theological seminary at Alexandria in 1871, he was graduated in 1873 and ordained in June of that year, beginning at that date his life work in the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal church. His service at St. Paul's church, Norfolk, began in 1882, and has been permitted to tend greatly to the welfare of the church. He has taken an active part in the organization of the Confederate Veterans of Virginia, has been chaplain of Pickett-Buchanan camp since its foundation, and for four years has served as grand chaplain of the State organization. His efforts in the field of general literature have been notable, and include the dedicatory poems for the Confederate monument at Portsmouth and the Otey battery monument at Baltimore, and the ode read on Virginia day at the Columbian exposition of 1893. He was married in 1873 to Maria (born at Mt. Vernon), daughter of Col. John Augustus Washington, who inherited Mt. Vernon from his father and sold it to the Mount Vernon association; was commissioned lieutenant-colonel in the Confederate army, and served on the staff of Gen. R. E. Lee until September, 1861, when he was killed during Lee's first campaign, by an ambuscade at Rich Mountain, W. Va. Dr. Tucker and wife have a family of nine sons and four daughters.

Commodore John Randolph Tucker, of Virginia, a hero of three navies, but particularly conspicuous in his services for the Southern Confederacy, was born at Alexandria in the year 1812. He entered the navy of the United States in 1826, made his first cruise in the frigate Brandywine, and was promoted lieutenant in 1837 and commander in 1855. During the Mexican war he commanded