Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1230

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1152
CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.

tured by Federal raiders and paroled. Since the close of the war he has been engaged in agriculture in Wythe county. In 1895 he was elected county treasurer.

Colonel Alexander Savage, of Nansemond county, Va., a gallant cavalry officer of the army of Northern Virginia, was born in the county where he now resides in the year 1831, the son of John Savage, a prosperous farmer. Prior to the war he was engaged in the naval stores trade in North and South Carolina. He entered the military service in April, 1861, as orderly-sergeant of a Nansemond cavalry company which was assigned as Company I to the Thirteenth regiment, Virginia cavalry, and manifesting soldierly ability that warranted unusual promotion, he became captain in 1862. During the last year of the war he commanded his regiment with the rank of colonel. Mr. Savage was with his regiment under the command of Colonel (afterward General) Chambliss in the vicinity of Norfolk during the first year of the war, and later in operations about Richmond, and in North Carolina during the Maryland campaign. Still later in 1862 the regiment was on duty between Warrenton and Fredericksburg, and afterward joined the cavalry command of Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, in the brigade of W. H. F. Lee, which, during the Gettysburg campaign was under the command of Colonel Chambliss. Captain Savage took part in Stuart's movement around the Federal army and the fierce cavalry fight on the field of Gettysburg. Subsequently he was identified with the operations of his command through the fall of 1863, the fighting of 1864 from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor, and the engagements in the defense of Petersburg and Richmond until March 31, 1865, when in a fight with Sheridan's cavalry at Chamberlain's Creek, he was struck by a minie ball in the knee joint, receiving a wound which made it necessary to amputate his leg. The evacuation of Richmond immediately followed while he was in the field hospital, and when he was again able to move about, in June, 1865, the war was ended. After this he engaged in the commission business at Norfolk until 1894, when he retired to his beautiful country home in Nansemond county. He was a gallant soldier, was in every engagement of his command and took pride in sharing with his men all the hardships and dangers of war. Colonel Savage has five children by his first wife, Miss Sarah Lee, daughter of John R. Lee, of Virginia; and in 1894 he was married to a daughter of Dr. Lewis, of Norfolk.

William Elmore Savage, a popular citizen of Norfolk, who rendered service to the Confederacy during his boyhood, was born in Northampton county in 1848. His father, Peter B. Savage, a descendant of one of the old families of the State, and a son of Calvin Savage, a soldier of the war of 1812, was a prominent business man of Norfolk until his death in 1869. The wife of the latter was Jane Read, daughter of Dr. Calvin Read, of Northampton county, and a descendant of a family which has long been identified with the Old Dominion. Luther Read, an uncle of Mr. Savage, represented his county in the Virginia legislature for a considerable period. W. E. Savage was reared at Norfolk from the age of two years, and being thirteen years old when the war broke out, was not permitted to enlist. But he took a lively interest in the military organization, and was assigned to duty as dispatch bearer between Colonel Blanchard and General Huger,