Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/177

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CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.
159

and was promoted brigadier-general on the field by President Davis, who had witnessed the gallant action. In command of a brigade General Elzey was with Stonewall Jackson all through his celebrated Valley campaign of 1862, and the opening of the Seven Days' fighting before Richmond. At the battle of Port Republic he was slightly wounded in the leg, and his horse shot under him, and in the engagement at Cold Harbor he was desperately wounded, a minie ball entering on the right side of his face just above the mouth and passing transversely entirely through his head and out behind his left ear. This injury prevented his further service in the field, but after his almost miraculous recovery he was promoted major-general and put in command of the department of Richmond, where he continued until the fall of 1864. He then joined General Hood as chief of artillery of the army of Tennessee, and participated in the operations against Sherman's line of communication. After the end of the war, being permitted to return to Maryland, he retired with his wife, and only son then living, to a small farm in Anne Arundel county. Here this intrepid soldier and modest unassuming gentleman passed the remainder of his days, honored for his manly virtues, and beloved for his gentle qualities. He died February 21, 1870, while on a visit to Dr. Frank Donaldson, at Baltimore. His wife, to whom he was married in 1845, then Miss Ellen Irwin, a ruling belle of Baltimore society, still survives him.

Major-General Isaac Ridgeway Trimble was born in Culpeper county, Virginia, May 15, 1802. He was graduated at the national military academy in 1822, and was detailed to survey the military road from Washington to the Ohio river, having won distinction at West Point in engineering. In 1832 he resigned from the army, and becoming chief engineer of the Baltimore and Susquehanna railroad, completed that line to York, Pa., in 1837.