Ann Bulley, was a native of the Old Dominion. His father, Rufus Turner, was a machinist by occupation and an industrious and highly respected man. Mr. Turner was reared from the age of six years in Virginia, and became thoroughly devoted to the State and her institutions. In 1855, at the age of sixteen years, he engaged in the vocation of a pilot upon the pilot boat York, and had been occupied in this calling for six years when the State began organizing for defense against the threatened Federal invasion. He was called to Richmond by Governor Letcher, where he served in the State military organization, first in the engineers and subsequently in the quartermaster's department. In 1862 he was assigned to the navy with the grade of first-class pilot, and afterward for meritorious conduct was promoted master. The particular service which earned this promotion was the cutting of the chain cables which had been placed inside the Federal lines to obstruct the navigation of the James river. During the operations of the James river squadron he took part in all its movements and engagements. After the evacuation of the capital he was ordered to battery service at Danville, where he was stationed until the surrender. He then joined the army of Johnston in North Carolina, and there surrendered in the general capitulation. After this he resumed his former occupation as a pilot, and in 1866 became one of the charter members of the Virginia pilot association, in which he is still prominent. In 1860 Captain Turner was married to Mary Frances, daughter of Capt. James E. Minson, a fellow pilot, and they have one child living, Anna G., wife of B. F. Dozier.
Captain Smith S. Turner, during life a prominent lawyer of Front Royal, and three years a representative in Congress of the Seventh Virginia district, was born in Warren county, November 21, 1842. In his youth he entered the Virginia military institute, and was awarded an honorable diploma, although the outbreak of the war prevented the completion of his studies. As a cadet of the institute he was with the cadet command that went to Harper's Ferry to take possession of the military stores in April, 1861, and then remained with the command of "Stonewall" Jackson, serving as drill officer until September, 1861. In the spring of 1862, at the reorganization, he was elected second lieutenant of Company B of the Seventeenth Virginia infantry regiment, and later in 1862 was promoted first lieutenant. He remained with this command until the close of the war, commanding his company for nine months after the battle of Sharpsburg, and on other occasions other companies in addition to his own. After the first year of the war his service was rendered in Pickett's division of the army of Northern Virginia. In the list of important engagements in which he participated, are the memorable names of the First Manassas, Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Frayser's Farm, Cold Harbor, Gaines' Mill, Malvern Hill, Second Manassas, Thoroughfare Gap, South Mountain, Sharpsburg, where he was wounded in the head by a fragment of shell, Fredericksburg, Drewry's Bluff, various skirmishes in Tennessee in 1863, New Bern and Suffolk. Near the last days of the war he was with the army of Gen. J. E. Johnston, and just before the surrender of that command narrowly escaped death in a terrible accident. He was among sixteen men who were involved in the explosion of
