Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1295

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CONFEDERATE MILITARY HISTORY.
1215

Private Towers fought at the battles of Rich Mountain, Petersburg, Greenbrier Run, and Allegheny Mountain. In the following spring, with his regiment in the army of the Northwest, under command of Gen. Edward Johnson, he participated in the Valley campaign under Stonewall Jackson, fighting at McDowell, Front Royal and Winchester. At the latter engagement he was captured by the enemy before their retreat, and subsequently was confined at the Old Capitol prison until his parole in September, 1862. Upon being exchanged, in the following December, he entered the ordnance department at Richmond as ordnance messenger, and was engaged in the conveying of ordnance from Richmond to Wilmington, N. C., and carrying supplies to blockade runners for about eight months. He then re-enlisted in the Twenty-third Virginia regiment of cavalry as a private, and being later promoted to sergeant, participated in the campaigns of Breckinridge and Early in the valley, fighting at the battle of New Market, and in skirmishes along the Potomac, in the campaign against the Hunter expedition, including the battle of New Hope Church, an affair at Waynesboro, skirmishing on the way to Lynchburg and the battle there, and finally the battles with Sheridan in the vicinity of Winchester. At the conclusion of the war Sergeant Towers returned to Washington, but soon went into business at Richmond for a year, and after that in Cumberland county. In 1873 he made his home permanently at Washington, and became employed in the city postoffice, where he is now assistant superintendent. He is a member of the local association of Confederate Veterans.

Adam Tredwell, a prominent citizen of Norfolk, Va., was born at Brooklyn, N. Y., February 13, 1840, whence his parents had removed from North Carolina. He is the son of James Iredell Tredwell, a native of Edenton, N. C., who removed to Brooklyn and there died. His mother, Mary Bonner Blount, also a native of Edenton, returned to North Carolina after her husband's death, and died in August, 1870. Paternally Mr. Tredwell is descended from the New England Puritan stock, his seventh grandfather, in direct descent, being the famous John Alden, secretary of the Mayflower colony. Both his father's and mother's ancestors were of the Episcopal faith, and include six bishops of that church. Mr. Tredwell was reared and educated in North Carolina, and at the time when that State was deliberating regarding her position in the conflict impending in 1861, he became a member of the Washington Greys, destined for service in the Confederate cause. He served with this command about five months and was then, in the early part of the summer of 1861, transferred to the navy of the Confederate States as private secretary of Commander William T. Muse. He served in the naval engagement at Hatteras and then accompanied Commander Muse to Wilmington, where he remained until the end of the war. In the summer of 1862 he was commissioned assistant paymaster in the regular navy of the Confederate States, serving on the staff of Commodore Lynch and Commodore Pinckney, and continuing in that capacity at the Wilmington naval station until the close of hostilities. Since 1867 he has made his home at Norfolk, where he has been engaged in a number of important enterprises, and has been active