Personal Reminiscences of the War of 1861-5 / In Camp—en Bivouac—on the March—on Picket—on the Skirmish Line—on the Battlefield—and in Prison

by W. H. Morgan

THE ELEVENTH REGIMENT

The Eleventh Regiment, which was camped immediately on the north side of the railroad, just west of the dépôt, was now composed of ten companies, with the following named field and staff officers and company commanders:

Colonel, Sam Garland, Jr., of Lynchburg; Lieut.-Colonel, David Funston, of Alexandria; Major, Carter H. Harrison, of Lancaster County; Adjutant, J. Lawrence Meem; Sergeant Major, Chas. A. Tyree; Chaplain, Rev. J. C. Granberry; Surgeon, Dr. G. W. Thornhill; Assistant Surgeon, Dr. Chalmers; Quarter-Master, R. G. H. Kean; Commissary, L. F. Lucado; Commissary Sergeant, W. L. Akers.

Company A, Capt. Morris S. Langhorne; Company B, Capt. Robert C. Saunders; Company C, Capt. Adam Clement; Company D, Capt. D. Gardner Houston; Company E, Capt. J. E. Blankenship; Company F, Capt. Henry Foulks; Company G, Capt. Kirk Otey; Company H, Capt. J. Risque Hutter; Company I, Capt. —— Jamison; Company K, Capt. Robert Yeatman.

Colonel Garland was promoted to brigadier-general in May, 1862, and was killed at Boonsboro Mountain, Md., in September, 1862. Lieutenant-Colonel Funston succeeded Colonel Garland in command of the regiment, and was disabled by wounds at Seven Pines, on the 30th of May, 1862, and retired from the service; he was later elected to the Confederate Congress, and I think still later was in the service again. Major Harrison was mortally wounded at Bull Run, July 18, 1861. Captain Langhorne succeeded him as major and was afterwards promoted lieutenant-colonel. He was disabled by wounds at Seven Pines on the 30th of May, 1862, and never returned to the army.

Captain Clement was promoted to major just before the Seven Pines fight, was disabled at the battle of Sharpsburg, Md., the 17th of September, 1862, while in command of the regiment, and never returned to the field.

Captain Saunders retired at the end of the first year, and was afterwards in the commissary department as collector of tax in kind.

Captain Houston was killed at Gettysburg on the 3d of July, 1863.

Captain Blankenship retired at the battle of Blackburn's Ford on the 18th of July, 1861; he secured a position in the engineering corps, I think.

Captain Foulks was killed at Seven Pines. I was in a few feet of him when he was shot dead.

Captain Yeatman resigned.

Lieut. G. W. Latham succeeded Captain Langhorne in command of Company A, and he was succeeded by Lieut. Robt. M. Mitchell, Jr. Lieut. Thos. B. Horton succeeded Captain Saunders of Company B, and I succeeded Captain Clement of Company C; Lieut. Thos. Houston succeeded his brother, D. G. Houston, of Company D; Lieut. C. V. Winfrey succeeded Captain Blankenship of Company E; Lieut. Robt. W. Douthat succeeded Captain Foulks of Company F; Lieut. J. Holmes Smith succeeded Captain Otey of Company G; Lieut. Jas. W. Hord succeeded Captain Hutter of Company H; Lieut. A. I. Jones, I think, succeeded Captain Jamison of Company I; Lieut. Andrew M. Houston, a brother of the other Houstons already mentioned, succeeded Captain Yeatman of Company K; Captain Otey was promoted to major, lieutenant-colonel and colonel. Captain Hutter was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, and was in command of the regiment at the battle of Five Forks on the 5th of April, 1865, when he and nearly all of the regiment were captured.

Capt. C. V. Winfrey, of Company E, was afterwards succeeded by Lieut. John C. Ward. Several of these officers were V. M. I. men, as I now remember, as follows: Garland, Harrison, Otey, Hutter, Blankenship, Ward, D. G. Houston, and perhaps others.

Company G, the old "Home Guard," was the crack company of the regiment. Company A, the "Rifle Grays," also of Lynchburg, was a close second to Company G, armed with the Mississippi rifle, and generally acted as skirmishers, and one of these rifles brought down the first Yankee on the 18th of July, 1861, as hereinafter related.

Company D was also armed with Mississippi rifles and was often on the skirmish line. Company B was made up of men from the western section of Campbell County; Company C, as before said, from the Pigeon Run section, Mt. Zion, and Falling River neighborhoods. Company D came from Botetourt County—large, hardy, hale fellows they were too, many of them with German names. Company E was made up largely of college boys from Lynchburg College, its first captain being one of the professors.

Company F, a sturdy lot of men, came from the hills of Alleghany Mountains in Montgomery County around Christiansburg.

Company H was a new Lynchburg company, recruited by its captain, then in his teens, with many sons of Erin in its ranks.

Company I was made up of men from Culpeper County.

Company K was from the James River section of Rockbridge County—its commander, a canal freight-boat captain, and many of the men boatmen on the canal when the tocsin of war was sounded. All classes, from the college-bred and the professional man to the country schoolboy, were represented in the regiment.

The following are the rolls of the four Lynchburg companies of the Eleventh Regiment. I have been unable to get the rolls of the other companies of the regiment: