Monument to M]<n- ./. \\\
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wounded returned to their camp, which had been removed to a posi- tion above Richmond, near the Old Fair Grounds.
In the three fights in which the battery had been engaged, it had lost sixty-five in killed and wounded, among whom were three com- missioned and eight non-commissioned officers. It had lost thirty- four horses, and had all of its original guns disabled.
The absence of incident in the above account is to be accounted for by the fact that the brave men to whom we are indebted for the main facts were, during the three battles in which they were engaged, too busy to take note of anything but their guns and the enemy in their front.
[From the Winchester, Va. Times, September 27, 1893.]
A MONUMENT TO MAJOR JAMES W. THOMSON, CONFEDERATE STATES ARTILLERY.
With an Account of His Death and of the Organization of Chew's Battery.
[We are not advised that the amount needed for the erection of the monument to Major Thomson has yet been secured, but we feel it will be. For additional particulars as to the career of the famous Chew Battery, see an account of a reunion of its survivors held in October, 1890. Southern Historical Society Papers,\Q\. XVIII, pp. 281-286.]
On the 20th of March, 1864, Captain Robert Preston Chew's battery, was camped near Gordonsville, with the battalion of Stuart's Light Horse Artillery. On the 25th an election of company officers having been ordered (as Captain Chew had just received his com- mission as major) First Lieutenant James W. Thomson, a son of John A. Thomson, of Summit Point, was elected captain of Chew's famous old battery, and from that date was known as Thomson's battery, and under his control, although he was less than twenty- three years old. The battery lost none of prestige; a braver or more gallant young officer was not in the service. Five young men from Winchester came to us and volunteered in the company : A Beale
