With the Ninth regiment, Armistead's brigade, he took part in the battle of Seven Pines, and the Seven Days' campaign, his command being hotly engaged at Malvern Hill. He was next in battle at Warrenton Springs, soon afterward at Second Manassas, and subsequently participated in the engagements at Sharpsburg and Fredericksburg. During the succeeding fall and winter he was with his brigade in North Carolina and in the Suffolk campaign. Then rejoining Lee's army he marched into Pennsylvania, and on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg was one of the irresistible line of gray that swept up Cemetery hill and drove the enemy from their position; but standing there unsupported in the midst of the Federal army, were swept away in a storm of fire. Of the forty-eight men of the Portsmouth Rifles who went into action, only seven were able to report for duty the next day. Sergeant Ballentine, falling wounded, was captured, and from that time until February, l865, was held as a prisoner of war at Fort Henry, Fort Delaware and Point Lookout. On rejoining his regiment he fought in the trenches before Petersburg, and after the evacuation fought his last battle at Five Forks, where he was again captured, and held at Point Lookout until June, 1865. He then resumed his work as a builder, which he abandoned to enter the army, and in 1866 began railroad work, in which he has rapidly won promotion, now being master carbuilder for the Seaboard Air Line railroad. He has taken a worthy part in public and social affairs, has served twenty-six years upon the city council, part of the time as vice-president, has been a director of the Portsmouth and Norfolk building and loan association many years, and is a member of Stonewall camp, and the Masonic and other fraternal orders. In 1877 he was married to Ruth H., daughter of Thomas H. Myers.
Colonel Charles A. Ballou, a Virginian soldier of the war of 1812, and subsequently colonel of State militia, who died in 1865, gave three sons to the Confederate service. Their mother was Rebecca A. Medley, daughter of Capt. Isaac Medley, of the war of 1812. The oldest son, Dr. Isaac T. Ballou, enlisted with a company from Halifax county and served throughout the war as a surgeon. The youngest, James E. Ballou, was in business at Memphis, Tenn., when the war began, and on his way to Virginia fell in with a Mississippi regiment bound for Manassas, which he joined. At the battle of Ball's Bluff, his first encounter with the enemy, he was shot through the body and killed. Charles A. Ballou, the second son, born in Halifax county, December 4, 1834, was debarred from service in the field by delicate health which had previously compelled him to abandon his studies at Washington college, and take up the profession of civil engineering as a means of promoting his strength. He volunteered in 1861, but was compelled to give up going, on account of physical disability. In 1863, anxious to render some service, he entered the quartermaster's department, in which he continued until the close of the war. Reporting to Maj. Charles S. Carrington, at Richmond, he was then ordered to report to Capt. Harry Robinson, at Danville, and put in charge of the government stores at New's Ferry, where he remained during the continuance of the war. While there he participated in the defeat of the Federal party which undertook to destroy the Staunton river bridge. After the war Mr. Ballou engaged in civil engineering, including railroad work, was principal of the Winston academy in
