Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/841

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CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.
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of the Austin Gazette, and at the time of the breaking out of the war, was adjutant-general of the State. In that capacity he raised and equipped a number of Texas regiments, and seized a large amount of Federal stores and arms. He was afterward appointed a colonel in the Confederate army, and served under Gen. Kirby Smith in the Trans-Mississippi department. He was in command of Fort DeRussey, where he made a gallant defense against the whole Federal army, and was there captured and taken to New Orleans, where he was imprisoned for some time. He was afterward exchanged, and served until the war closed. After the war he removed to Winchester, Va., his birthplace, and enjoyed a lucrative law practice until he retired, several years before his death, which occurred in May, 1898. R. E. Byrd, son of the above, was born in Austin, Texas, August 13, 1860. His father removed to Virginia when he was five years old, and he has resided in Winchester ever since. He is a graduate of the university of Virginia and the university of Maryland. He was elected in 1884 to the office of prosecuting officer for Frederick county, and has successively been re-elected ever since. He also holds the position of special examiner of records for the city of Winchester and the counties of Frederick, Clarke, Warren, Page and Shenandoah, and is commissioner of accounts for the county court of Frederick county.

Colonel George C. Cabell, of Danville, Va., ex-congressman, and a representative of a distinguished family of Confederate Soldiers, was born in the city where he now resides, January 25, 1837, the son of Gen. Benjamin W. S. and Sallie E. (Doswell) Cabell. His father, born in Montevideo, Buckingham county, about 1791, died in 1862, was educated both in medicine and law, but devoted his life to the practice of the latter profession, also giving much attention to literary work. He served for many years in both branches of the general assembly and was a member of the constitutional convention of 1829-30. He held the rank of lieutenant-colonel in the war of 1812, and afterward was major-general in the State service. One of his seven sons, Dr. Powhatan Bolling Cabell, died at Florence, Ala., in 1859. The others were all Confederate soldiers. The oldest, Dr. John R. Cabell, a graduate of the Virginia military institute, served throughout the war as captain of Company B, Thirty-eighth Virginia regiment, and died August 26, 1897. William. L. Cabell, a graduate of the United States military academy, attained the rank of captain in the old army, in the Confederate service rose to the rank of brigadier-general, and now resides at Dallas, Texas. Algernon S. Cabell, who served in Carroll's brigade, McCulloch's division, throughout the war, with the rank of major, lived for many years in Arkansas, and died in August, 1898. Joseph R. Cabell, colonel of the Thirty-eighth Virginia infantry, was killed at Drewry's bluff, May 10, 1864, at the age of twenty-two years. Benjamin E. Cabell, first lieutenant of Company E, Thirty-eighth Virginia regiment, died at eighteen years of age from wounds received at the battle of Seven Pines. Col. George C. Cabell, the fourth son in this patriotic family, was graduated in law at the university of Virginia in 1858, and at once entering upon professional work had, when the war began, held for two years the office of attorney for the commonwealth. He enlisted as a private in the Eighteenth infantry, but