Olive and first lieutenant of Company I, Fourth regiment Virginia militia, and James F. Bryant, Jr., who is now a student at the university of Virginia. Lieut. R. B. Bryant, the eldest son, enlisted with his company in the Spanish war and served as lieutenant with his regiment in Gen. Fitzhugh Lee's Seventh army corps.
Captain Francis E. Buford, a veteran of the heavy artillery service, was born in Brunswick county, Va., November 17, 1836, the son of William P. Buford, for many years sheriff of that county, and grandson of Abraham Buford, a native of Lunenburg county, who held the rank of captain during the war of 1812. He was educated at William and Mary college and studied law at the university of Virginia. In December, 1857, he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of his profession. He entered the service of the Confederate States in February, 1862, as captain of Company E, Third Virginia regiment, heavy artillery, stationed at Richmond for the defense of the Confederate capital. This company he had organized, and he continued on duty until disabled by a malady which carried off twenty-nine of his company in less than thirty days. From the effects of the disease Captain Buford never completely recovered, and being unfitted for active duty, he took charge of the enrolling work for Brunswick county and served in that capacity until the war came to an end. In 1865 he was elected commonwealth attorney for his county, and after fifteen years' service in that office he was elected judge of the county court. He discharged the duties of this honorable position with much dignity and impartiality until 1892, when he retired from the bench and from the practice of law. In the latter he has been succeeded by his son, Edward P. Buford, who was admitted to the bar in 1889, and is now commonwealth attorney and member of the State legislature. During the past few years Captain Buford has ably edited the Brunswick Gazette.
Thomas P. Buford, a Mississippian by rearing, education and military service, was born in Maury county, Tenn., in 1833, and is now a resident of Roanoke, Va., where he enjoys that esteem which is due a brave Confederate soldier, and holds the rank of past commander of William Watts camp, United Confederate Veterans. He is of an old Virginia family, long residents of Lunenburg county, where his great-grandfather, Warren Buford, was born. His grandfather, Philemon Buford, born in 1765, died about 1849. His father, Goodloe W. Buford, also a native of Lunenburg county, removed to Tennessee, where Thomas P. was born, and thence, during the latter's infancy, to La Fayette county. Miss. Here the father died in 1887 in his ninety-fourth year. In 1854 Thomas P. Buford was graduated at the university of Mississippi, at Oxford, and then engaged in planting in La Fayette county until the invasion of the South. In April, 1861, he enlisted as a private in Company G of the Eleventh Mississippi infantry regiment, with which he served until disabled by wounds near the close of the war, holding the position of corporal after his first year's service. Prominent among the battles in which he participated were the engagement at Seven Pines, the fighting about Suffolk, Va., Mine Run, the Wilderness, and the struggle about Petersburg during Grant's siege. At Seven Pines he was slightly wounded in the left knee. After the Suffolk campaign he was disabled by sickness for six months and at the Wilderness he was so seriously wounded
