Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/894

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CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.

wounded, twice at Brandy Station and once at Trevilian Station. In January, 1865, he was captured and taken to Fort McHenry, Baltimore, where he experienced the horrors of prison life, being for some time confined with six others in a narrow dungeon cell. When released, after the close of hostilities, he resumed his residence and business pursuits at Berryville, where he is now prominent as a merchant and a citizen. He is a member of J. E. B. Stuart camp, Confederate Veterans, and of the Clarke Cavalry association.

William Harper Dean, a well-known business man of Richmond, and a veteran of the First Virginia regiment of infantry, was born in that city in 1841 and was there reared and educated. Immediately after the passage of the ordinance of secession of the State, he enlisted, April 19th, as a private in the First Virginia infantry, with which he was subsequently identified during the remainder of the war. His soldierly qualities and gallant service soon brought about his promotion from the grade of private. In July, 1861, he was made corporal, in the fall of 1861 fourth sergeant, two or three months later third sergeant, and on the field at Williamsburg he was promoted first sergeant of his company. In 1863 he was promoted to the responsible and important position of quartermaster sergeant of the First regiment. In this capacity he served during the remaining two years of the war, continuing with his command until it was surrendered and paroled at Appomattox. During his active service in the field he participated in the battles of Manassas of 1861, Falls Church, Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Gaines' Mill, Frayser's Farm, Malvern Hill, Manassas of 1862, Sharpsburg, Md., Fredericksburg, and Plymouth, N. C., a series of important and severe engagements which includes a goodly share of the hardest fighting of the war, throughout which he bore himself as a brave and devoted soldier. At the close of hostilities Sergeant Dean returned to business life and became identified with the tobacco trade. For two years succeeding the war he was thus engaged at New York city, and subsequently conducted a factory during four years in Nova Scotia. After another year at New York he conducted a tobacco business at Montreal, Canada, until 1887, when he again made his home at Richmond, and, giving his attention to the leaf tobacco trade, has built up a successful business. Mr. Dean is a member of both the Lee and Pickett camps, United Confederate Veterans.

D. W. Debord, of Marion, Va., a veteran of the Twenty-third Virginia battalion, was born in Smyth county, July 7, 1840. When about twenty-one years of age, in the latter part of June, 1861, he entered the Confederate service as a private in Capt. William Blessing's company, Company A, Twenty-third Virginia battalion, with which he first served in West Virginia, and then, moving through Kentucky, participated in the defense of Fort Donelson, where the Virginia troops fought gallantly in the very creditable battle which preceded the surrender. Escaping from that calamity with the main part of General Floyd's command, he shared the service of the command at Nashville, in preserving order and saving supplies, and then returned to southwest Virginia. The Twenty-third battalion, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Derrick, was part of the army of the Kanawha which operated in the valley from which it derived its title, during 1862, notably in