Carolina State troops, and during the succeeding campaigns bore himself with such valor and discretion that he rose to command of his company. He was one of the heroic North Carolinians who made the fame of Pettigrew’s brigade. His first battle was at New Bern, but subsequently he was identified with the army of Northern Virginia, on the fields of that State, and of Maryland and Pennsylvania. At Malvern Hill, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and in the hard fighting about Gettysburg, he represented well the indomitable valor of his State. At Gettysburg, July 1, 1863, he was twice severely wounded in the foot and in the side, and on the retreat he was captured, July 4th, but was soon afterward rescued by the Confederate forces and carried to hospital at Richmond. At the battle of the Wilderness he was shot through the shoulder, but not long afterward he was again in the ranks, and in October, 1864, in the thick of the fight at Burgess Mill, he was again captured, but again he succeeded in making his escape. He was finally surrendered at Appomattox, when he returned home and resumed his occupation as a farmer. He has represented his county one term in the legislature, by election in 1884, and his senatorial district in the State senate, by election in 1890. In 1866 he was married to Isabel C. Palmer, and they have five children: Joseph M., Fred Leroy, Robert P., John and George W.
Captain John Wilkes, of Charlotte, N. C., was born in New York city in 1827, the son of Admiral Charles Wilkes, United States navy, famous as the commander of the United States exploring expedition to the Antarctic ocean in 1838, and as the captor of the Confederate States commissioners, Messrs. Mason and Slidell. He entered the United States navy in 1841, as a midshipman, graduated at the United States naval academy, Annapolis, in 1847, at the head of a class of 135 members, and served in the Mexican war, participating in the attacks upon Brazos, Vera Cruz and other services performed by the navy Resigning in 1854, he made his home at Charlotte and engaged in mining and manufacturing. At the beginning of the rupture between the South and North, he adhered to the cause of the State with which he had become identified. In 1858 he had founded what is now known as the Mecklenburg iron works, and this plant,
