Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1161

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CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.
1085

a later date district commissary in that territory. After the fall of Richmond he was paroled and then returned to Leesburg, where he resumed his former occupation. His wife having died, he was again married to Orra V., daughter of George W. Preston, o£ Loudoun. In the years that have elapsed since the turbulent war period he has succeeded notably in the practice of his profession, and holds worthy rank as a jurist. He maintains a membership in Clinton Hatcher camp of Confederate Veterans at Leesburg, and holds in warm comradeship the veterans of the Confederate army.

Colonel Kirkwood Otey, of Lynchburg, a distinguished officer of the army of Northern Virginia, was born at Lynchburg, October 19, 1829, the son of Capt. John M. Otey, cashier of the bank of Virginia, who died in 1859, and grandson of Maj. Isaac Otey, of Bedford county, who served thirty years in the Virginia senate. He was graduated in 1849 at the Virginia military institute, where his soldierly qualities had won for him the positions of sergeant-major and adjutant, continued in the military service of the State from that date, and at the organization of the Lynchburg Home Guard in November, 1859, was elected first lieutenant. The company was mustered in April 24, 1861, at Richmond, as Company G of the Eleventh Virginia infantry regiment, of which Capt. Samuel Garland, of the Home Guard, was elected colonel. Lieutenant Otey thereupon became captain, May 10th, and serving with gallantry and efficiency throughout the succeeding battles and campaigns was promoted major in the summer of 1862, lieutenant-colonel soon afterward, and colonel in July, 1863. He commanded his regiment at Gettysburg, participating in the assault by Pickett's division and was severely wounded in the shoulder by the explosion of a shell, and again at Drewry's Bluff, in May, 1864, he was so seriously wounded as to incapacitate him for duty in the field. Among the other important battles in which he took part were Blackburn's Ford, Williamsburg, the Seven Days' battles, Seven Pines, Fredericksburg, New Bern, N. C., and Plymouth, N. C. In the fall of 1864 he was ordered on disabled court-martial duty, to which he gave his attention until March, 1865, when he took command of the local forces at Lynchburg. This honorable career being ended by the surrender he returned to the duties of civil life, and attained creditable success in business. In 1881 he was elected city auditor, a position in which he was retained by successive re-elections until his death. He participated in the reorganization of the Home Guard in April, 1871, accepting the office of secretary and treasurer. Subsequently he served as captain from June, 1876, until his resignation in 1888. He was the moving spirit in the organization of Garland-Rodes camp, United Confederate Veterans, of which he was commander at the time of his decease, June 1, 1897. He was also a valued member of the Masonic order, and these three organizations, the Home Guard bearing the tattered flag of his old regiment, and the Daughters of the Confederacy, followed his body to the grave and participated in the final honors paid the memory of a noble man and gallant soldier. On this sad occasion his widow, Mrs. Lucy (Norvell) Otey, received a telegram of condolence from Lieutenant-General Longstreet, her husband's warm personal friend. In the resolutions adopted by Garland-Rodes camp occur these sentences, a fitting tribute to the memory of the