All my life I have been interested in the Civil War and over the last few years I have made a study of each battle fought as I was interested in finding out which battles my grandfather participated in. He was David Secrest, son of Solomon Secrest of Montvale, Virginia living on the Buford place where now stands a tank farm. David Secrest was also father of Tilden Secrest and eight other children. Most of his children lived out their lives in Bedford County, Tilden, my father, lived 90 years there and died in 1964.
The first thing I did was get a copy of grandfather's service record from the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
From this I learned that he enlisted in the Army of the Confederacy on May 18, 1861 shortly after the war begun. He was enlisted by Captian Buford at Lisbon, Virginia (which is now Bedford, Va.) for a period of 1 year.
Two of his brothers also enlisted, James B. Secrest, who died of measles while in the service and Martin V. Secrest who was listed as missing and never heard from again.
David Secrest was assigned to Company "C" of the 42nd. Infantry Division and served with that Company through the war. His service record shows that he was on Company Muster rolls in 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864 and 1865.
He was wounded only once, in his right hand and was admitted to the General Hospital at Camp Winder, Richmond, Virginia on July 1, 1862. He was furloughed for 25 days on July 5, 1862 to recover from his wound. I have no way of knowing if he made it home while on this furlough.
He fought the rest of the war with his outfit which was under the command of Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson and was proud to have known and served under such a capable leader. General Jackson was killed by his own men by mistake in the battle of Chancellorsville May 1863. His division after that was placed by General Lee under the command of General Richard S. Ewell and finished out the war under his command.
David Secrest was on the roll of prisoners of war belonging to the Army of Northern Virginia and was surrendered by General Robert E. Lee, Commanding, to Lt. General U.S. Grant, commanding the armies of the United States and, was paroled at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, April 9, 1865, and went to Clover Hill, Virginia on April 10, 1865 and left on foot for home at Montvale which was approximately 60 miles.
I have made an indepth study of each battle fought in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, as these would be the ones grandfather would be involved in.
I have visited most of these battlefields to walk over the same gound that was fought on to get a better idea of how the battle was fought and what the objective of each side was. I have taken pictures of where the fighting was the most furious to compare them with the collection I have taken by two great artist-photographers of the Civil War, Mr. Alexander Gardner and Mr. Matthew Brady.
I have no way to prove that grandfather was at all of these places, but his outfit, the 42nd. Virginia Infantry was there; this I have proof. Being an ex-soldier myself, World War II, I know that my outfit was involved in five battles in Italy and I took part in each of those, so for the time being we will assume he was with his company.
I have listed each battle that I can find the 42nd. involved in, place and date of that battle, the commanding officers, the objective of his division, if known and the number of men killed, wounded or missing. These figures will be for the whole C.S.A. Army not the 42nd. Division.