[JAMES JOHNSTON PETTIGREW.]
BY MRS. C. P. SPENCER.
James Johnston Pettigrew, late a Brigadier-General in the army of the Confederate States, was born at Lake Scuppernong, in Tyrrell county, North Carolina, upon the 4th day of July, 1828. His family is of French extraction. At an early period, however, one branch of it emigrated to Scotland, where it may be traced holding lands near Glasgow about the year 1492. Afterwards a portion of it removed to the northern part of Ireland. From this place James Pettigrew, the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, about the year 1732, came into Pennsylvania, and, some twenty years afterwards, into North Carolina. About 1770 this gentleman removed to South Carolina, leaving here, however, his son Charles, who was a resident successively of the counties of Granville, Chowan, and Tyrrell. Charles Pettigrew was subsequently the first Bishop-elect of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this Diocese. He died in 1807, and his memory survives fragrant with piety, charity, and an extended usefulness. His son, Ebenezer, succeeded to his estates and reputation, devoting his life to the successful drainage and cultivation of the fertile lands which he owned and to the government of the large family of which he was the head. Mr. Pettigrew resisted every solicitation presented by his neighbors for the employment of his talents in public service. Upon one occasion alone was his reluctance overcome. In 1835 he was chosen by a very flattering vote to represent his district in the Congress of the United States. At that election he received the rare compliment of an almost unanimous vote from his fellow-citizens of Tyrrell, failing to obtain but three votes out of more than seven hundred. He could not be prevailed upon to be a candidate at a second election. Mr. Pettigrew married Miss Shepard, a daughter of the distinguished family of that name seated at New Bern. She died in July, 1830, when her son James Johnston was but two years of age. Ebenezer Pettigrew lived until July, 1848, having witnessed with great sensibility the very brilliant opening of his son's career among the contemporary youth of the land.
After his mother's death the child was taken to the home of his grandmother at New Bern, and there remained until he was carried into Orange county to pursue his education. Owing to an unfortunate exposure whilst an infant, young Pettigrew became a delicate boy, but by diligent and systematic exercise he gradually inured his constitution to endure without harm extraordinary fatigue and the extremes of weather. He was a member of various schools at Hillsborough from the year 1836, enjoying the advantages of instruction by Mr. Bingham for about four years previous to becoming a student at the University. During this period the state of his health required him to be often at home for several months together. He was a member of the University of North Carolina during a full term of four years, graduating there at the head of his class in June, 1847. From early childhood young Pettigrew had been noted as a boy of extraordinary intellect. At all the schools he was easily first in every class and in every department of study. He seemed to master his text-books by intuition. They formed the smallest portion of his studies, for his eager appetite for learning ranged widely over subjects collateral to his immediate tasks. Nor did they always stop here. His father was amused and gratified upon one occasion to observe the extent to which he had profited by his excursions among the medical books of an eminent physician at Hillsborough, of whose family he was an inmate at the age of fourteen. In the class-room at the University he appeared in reciting rather to have descended to the level of the lesson than to have risen up to it. Student as he was, and somewhat reserved in demeanor, he was nevertheless very popular with his fellows, and the object of their enthusiastic admiration.
Anecdotes were abundant as to the marvelous range of his acquirements, and the generosity and patience with which he contributed from his stores even to the dullest applicant for aid. Nor was it only in letters that he was chief. A fencing-master, who happened to have a class among the collegians, bore quite as decided testimony to his merits in fencing as he had obtained from the various chairs of the faculty respecting his proficiency in their several branches.
The commencement at which he graduated was distinguished by the attendance of President Polk, Secretary Mason and Lieutenant Maury of the National Observatory. Impressed by the homage universally paid to his talents and acquirements, as well as by the high character of his graduating oration, these gentlemen proposed to him to become an assistant in the Observatory. After spending some weeks in recreation, Mr. Pettigrew reported to Lieutenant Maury, and remained with him for six or eight months. In the occupations of this office he fully maintained his earlier promise, but soon relinquished the position, inasmuch as the exposure and labor incident to it were injuriously affecting his health.
After an interval of travel in the Northern States, Mr. Pettigrew, in the fall of 1848, became a student of law in the office of James Mason Campbell, Esq., of Baltimore, where he remained for several months. At the close of this period, by the solicitation of his kinsman, the late James L. Petigru of Charleston, S. C., he entered his office with the design of being subsequently associated with him in the practice of his profession. Upon obtaining license, Mr. Pettigrew, by the advice of the kinsman just mentioned, proceeded to Berlin and to other universities in Germany, in order to perfect himself in the civil law. He remained in Europe for nearly three years. Two years of this time he devoted to study, the remainder he spent in traveling upon the Continent, and in Great Britain and Ireland. He availed himself of this opportunity of becoming acquainted with modern European languages so far as to be able to speak with ease German, French, Italian, and Spanish. During this tour he contracted a great partiality for Spanish character and history, having had considerable opportunity for studying the former, not only as a private gentleman, but also as Secretary of Legation, for a short while, to Colonel Barringer, then Minister of the United States near the Court of Spain. It may be proper to add here, that among the unaccomplished designs of Mr. Pettigrew, to which he had given some labor, was that of following Prescott in further narratives of the connection of Spain with America, and as a preliminary to this, he had made a collection of works in Arabic, and had made himself acquainted with that language.
Mr. Pettigrew returned to Charleston in November, 1852, and entered upon the practice of law in connection with his honored and accomplished relative. He profited so well by his studies in Europe and by his subsequent investigations, that in the opinion of his partner, who was well qualified to judge, he became a master of the civil law not inferior in acquisition and in grasp of principle to any in the United States. His success at the bar was brilliant. In 1856 he was chosen one of the representatives of the city in the Legislature, holding his seat under that election for the two sessions of December, 1856, and December, 1857. He rose to great distinction in that body. His report against the reopening of the slave-trade, and his speech upon the organization of the Supreme Court, gave him reputation beyond the bounds of the State. He failed to be reelected in 1858.
Mr. Pettigrew persistently refused to receive any portion of the income of the partnership of which he was a member. Independent in property, and simple in his habits of personal expenditure, he displayed no desire to accumulate money. Noble in every trait of character, he held the contents of his purse subject to every draft that merit might present.
For some years previous to the rupture between the North and the South, Mr. Pettigrew had anticipated its occurrence, and believing it to be his duty to be prepared to give his best assistance to the South, in such event, had turned his attention to military studies. Like many other rare geniuses, he had always a partiality for mathematics, and so very naturally devoted much time to that branch of this science which deals with war. Even as far back as 1850 he had been desirous of becoming an officer in the Prussian army; and negotiations for that end, set upon foot by military friends whom he had made at Berlin, failed only because he was a republican. Afterwards he became aid to Governor Allston of South Carolina, and more recently to Governor Pickens. Upon the breaking out of the war between Sardinia and Austria, Colonel Pettigrew at once arranged his private business and hastened to obtain position in the army under General Marmora.