William W. Garey, student 1859-1861

William W. Garey enlisted as a private in Company B of the 15th Virginia Infantry on May 14, 1861.  He was promoted on July 10, 1864 to corporal. Garey was taken prisoner at Petersburg on April 3, 1865 and sent to Point Lookout, MD, where he was released on June 12, 1865. He was the brother of Allen Thornton Garey.

Allen Thornton Garey, student 1859-1861

Allen Thornton Garey enlisted in Company A of the 3rd Virginia Cavalry, the "Boydton Cavalry" or "Mecklenburg Dragoons," on May 14, 1861 along with many of his schoolmates. Garey was taken prisoner at Williamsburg, VA on May 4, 1862 and sent to Fort Delaware, where he was released through exchange on August 5, 1862. He was the brother of William W. Garey.

In 1880 Garey was a miner living in Pima Arizona. By 1900, he had left to mine gold in California. He returned to Virginia sometime later and was admitted to the Robert E. Lee Confederate Soldier's Camp in Richmond on September 12, 1910, with the cause of admission listed as "old age and disability." He was discharged from the home on April 20, 1919, but readmitted on the day of his death, January 5, 1920. Garey is buried in Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery

Jesse Talbot Bernard, student 1845-1846

Bernard, who attended the College of William & Mary after leaving Randolph-Macon College, was practicing law in Florida when he enlisted as a private in the Leon Light Florida Artillery on April 24, 1862. He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant and was assigned as Assistant Quartermaster of the 8th Florida Infantry on October 1, 1862, with a later promotion ot Captain.
After the war he was a judge, the mayor of Tallahassee, FL, and served on the state's Board of Education. He died October 29, 1909 and is buried in Tallahassee's Old City Cemetery.

James Leroy Ewell, student 1856-1857

James Leroy Ewell, older brother of John Chowning Ewell, joined the 9th Virginia Cavalry, Company D, on June 16, 1861 as sergeant. Ewell was promoted to 1st lieutenant on May 12, 1862. He was detailed as Acting Qurtermaster for his regiment on May 15, 1863, returning to his company in June of 1863.

Ewell died July 18, 1866 as a result of disease caught during the war and is buried in the family plot in the cemetery of St. Mary's Whitechapel Episcopal Church in Lancaster County, VA.

John Chowning Ewell, student 1859-1861

At the age of 18, John Chowning Ewell enlisted as a sergeant in the 47th VA Infantry, Company F, in Lancaster County VA in January, 1861. He transferred to Company D of the 9th VA Cavalry on November 11, 1862, joining his older brother, James Leroy Ewell, in the unit.  He sustained a wound to his left side at Boydton Plank Road, VA on October 27, 1864. His final rank was corporal.

After the war he returned to Lancaster County where he became a surveyor and studied law, which he began practicing in 1874. He later served as commonwealth's attorney and became a judge. he was active and prominent in the local business community and in Confederate veteran activities. Judge Ewell died August 26, 1919 and is buried at St. Mary's Whitechapel Episcopal Church in Lancaster County, VA.

Lucius Jeremiah Gartrell, Class of 1844

Gartrell was a lawyer, judge, and Georgia congressman, serving in the US House of Representatives from 1857-Jan. 1861 before he enlisted as Colonel of the 7th Georgia Infantry on May 31, 1861, a unit he organized. Gartrell led the unit at Manassas/ (Bull Run), where his 16 year old son, Henry C. Gartrell, was wounded, dying a week later. Gartrell resigned his commission on January 3, 1862 to take his elected seat in the Confederate Congress.  On August 22, 1864, he accepted a commission as Brigadier-General of the 2nd Brigade of the Georgia Reserves.  He was wounded on January 15, 1865, leading his brigade at Coosawhatchie, South Carolina while trying to halt Sherman's army on its March to the Sea. This wound disabled him and he spent the rest of the war at home in Augusta, Georgia.

After the war, he moved to Atlanta and resumed his legal and political careers. He died April 8, 1891 and is buried in Atlanta's Oakwood Cemetery.

Philander Chinn George, student 1847-1848

Philander Chinn George enlisted in Company C of the 9th Virginia Cavalry as a private on May 25, 1861. He was detailed as an ambulance dirver in April, 1862. he was taken prisoner at Amelia Couth house on April 3, 1865 and sent to Point Lookout, MD, where he was kept until he took the oath of allegiance on June 12, 1865.

George attended Dickinson College after leaving R-MC, graduating in 1850.  In 1870 he was a farmer in Westmoreland county, VA, but by1880, he was a public school teacher in Montross (Westmoreland County0, VA. According to his widow's pension application, he died July 11, 1899 of heart trouble.

Grief C. Chumney, student 1858-1860

Grief C. Chumney enlisted as a private in Co. E of the 9th VA Cavalry on June 7, 1861. From September 15, 1862 until his parole at Burkesville, VA in April 1865, he was detached to the Signal Corps.

He received a Confederate disability pension in 1900 claiming near complete disability due to "stomach troubles and from varicose veins caused by long marches which disables me from labor." Chumney is listed as a lodger or boarder with different families in Lunenberg County in the 1900 and 1910 censuses.

John W. Fitzgerald, student 1858-1859

John W. Fitzgerald enlisted as a private in Company E of the 3rd Virginia Cavalry in May of 1861 in Nottoway County, Virginia. He was captured at Williamsburg during the Peninsula Campaign, exchanged on May 4, 1862. He was promoted to corporal on July 15, 1863. He was captured again on May 8, 1864 at Spotsylvania, VA and sent to Elmira Prison Camp in New York on July 23, 1864 where he spent the remainder of the War.He was paroled on July 16, 1865

John William Anthony, student 1859-1860

John William Anthony was 19 when he enlisted on may 23, 1861 in Company B of the 11th Virginia Infantry. He was wounded at the battle of Seven Pines in 1862 and Second Manassas. He mustered out of the 11th when he furnished a substitute on February 26, 1863.  The substitute, Patrick Murry, deserted the following day.  He also saw service in Company I of the 2nd Virginia Cavalry, and was promoted to sergeant. He was wounded again April 1, 1865 and hospitalized in Petersburg with a wound to the right thigh. Anthony November 8, 1920 in Campbell County, Virginia and is buried in the Anthony Family Cemetery at Evington, VA.

Berthier B. Bott, student 1836-1837

Bott enlisted as a private in Company F of the 5th Virginia Cavalry on April 20, 1861. He was discharged due to lung problems on October 15, 1861. Bott later served in company C of the 3rd Regiment, Virginia Reserves. He was a lieutenant at the time he was taken prisoner at Petersburg, VA on June 9, 1864 and sent to the prison camp at Fort Delaware, DE. He died May 15, 1894 and is buried in Blandford Cemetery, Petersburg, VA.

Richard Overton Wyatt, Class of 1858 (A.B.) and 1860 (A.M.)

Richard Overton Wyatt was a doctor who enlisted as a hospital steward but was promoted to Asst. Surgeon. He attended the University of Virginia after leaving R-MC. 


Wyatt died December 16, 1861 and was buried in a family cemetery on the grounds of the family home, Clifton, in Albemarle County, VA. In 1926, several family graves were moved to Maplewood Cemetery in Charlottesville, VA. 

M. C. Cardozo, student 1861-1862

M.C. Cardozo served as a sergeant in Company K of the 1st Regiment, Virginia Reserves. Known as Farinholt's Reserves, this unit of "old men and boys" helped to save the Confederacy's rail supply lines during the Battle of Staunton River Bridge in June of 1864.

James Robb Cowles, student 1857-1861

James R. Cowles enlisted in Co. E of the 12th Virginia Infantry as a private on July 22, 1861. Cowles was the younger brother of Henry Brown Cowles, Jr., who served in the same unit, and son to Rev. Henry Brown Cowles, an influential Methodist minister and agent for Randolph-Macon College. He was wounded on August 1, 1863 at Brandy Station, VA. He was given light duty in September 1864 when he was detailed to the Quartermasters Department. Cowles surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.

He attended the University of Virginia after the war and then moved to Texas, where he became a lawyer and judge. Tragically, an article in the February 10, 1883 issue of a newspaper published in McKinney, TX, states "Our people will regret to learn that Hon. J. R. COWLES, of Sherman, has become hopelessly insane, through induration [sic] of the brain. He had gone to Hot Springs, Ark., in the hope of finding relief, but dispatches from that place report his case hopeless. His friends will have him sent to the Asylum at Austin." He died in 1895 and is buried in West Hill Cemetery in Sherman, TX.

Archer Dibrell Crenshaw, class of 1858

Archer D. Crenshaw was a 23 year old teacher when he enlisted in the Confederate Army on May 25, 1861. Enlisting in the 18th Virginia, Company G, he eventually rose to the rank of captain before being killed on March 31, 1865 at the Battle of White Oak Road in Dinwiddie County, Virginia.

Walter Mandeville Irby, Class of 1858

Walter Mandeville Irby enlisted as a private in the "Nottoway Cavalry," Co. E of the 3rd Virginia Cavalry, on May 27, 1861 at Nottoway Court House, VA.  He lost two horses in 1863, one at Kelly's Ford, VA in March and the second in June at Snickersville, VA.  Irby was paroled at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. he had been promoted to seargeant by the end of the war.

Irby died Jan. 4, 1925 and is buried in Lakeview Cemetery in Blackstone, Nottoway County, VA. One her application for a Confederate pension, his widow Petronella lists his cause of death as "broken leg and old age."

David Seth Doggett, Jr., student 1859-1861

David Seth Doggett, Jr. joined the VA 1st Co. Howitzers Light Artillery  as a private on April 19, 1861. Doggett was discharged from the company on March 7, 1862.



He was the son of a prominent Virginia Methodist minister, David Seth Doggett, who had been a professor at the college from 1840-1846 and postwar in 1866 was both elected Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and was again appointed to a professorship at Randolph-Macon College. He was living in San Frnaciso, California in 1876 and 1878 but had returned to Richmond by 1880, where he resided with his paerents and was listed as unemployed for the previous 12 months in the census. Doggett, Jr. died March 16, 1893 and is buried in the family plot in Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery.

Caius Junius Jones, student 1858-1861

Jones joined the Co. I of the 3rd VA Cavalry as a private on July 20, 1861 at Dinwiddie Court House, VA. Jones was wounded on June 24,1864 at the Battle St. Mary's Church (also known as "Samaria Church" or "Nance's Shop"). He was later promoted to sergeant. He was wounded twice and reportedly used up 9 horses during the war.

After the war he moved to Norfolk and taught for several years before becoming a traveling salesman and then a grocer. Jones died in 1924 in Dinwiddie County, VA.

Edward T. Adams, student 1857-1858

Adams joined the Amelia Light Dragoons, company G of the 1st VA Cavalry, as a private on May 9, 1861. He survived hospitalization in early January of 1862 with measles, mumps, and pneumonia simultaneously. On May 12, 1862 he was detailed to Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond as hospital steward and ward master. He was promoted to Surgeon on the staff of General Bradley T. Johnson.

The 1860 census lists him as a "student of medicine" and he studied medicine first at the Medical College of Virginia and completed his degree at the the Medical College of Richmond.

William Dabney Adams, student 1860-1861

William Dabney Adams, brother of Edward T. Adams, enlisted in Co. G of the 1st Virginia Cavalry at the age of 17 as a private on September 1, 1862 in Amelia County, VA, in the company. He survived a wound in his foot on May 9, 1864 at Spotsylvania Court House and was agian wounded on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Court House. Adams was a 30 year old farmer in Amelia County at the time of his death October 26, 1874.

Samuel Hardy, Class of 1846

Hardy was a teacher and joint principal of Union Academy in Nottoway County, VA, when he enlisted as sergeant in Company G of the 18th Virginia Infantry (the "Nottoway Grays") on April 22, 1861. He was promoted to lieutenant on November 29, 1861. Hardy lost his left arm to amputation as the result of a wound near his shoulder at the Battle of Gaines' Mill, VA, on June 27, 1862 and  resigned on  October 8, 1862.  Hardy died in 1881.

Landon Brame Edwards, student 1861-1863

Landon Brame Edwards, youngest son of prominent Methodist minister and college trustee John Ellis Edwards as well as borther to Leroy Summerfield Edwards and William Emory Edwards, enlisted at the age of 18 in the  VA Southside Heavy Artillery at Drewry's Bluff, VA, on September 20, 1863 as a private. His older brother William was serving as the post chaplain. Edwards was diagnosed with heart disease in 1864 and spent November 1864-March 1865 in Richmond attending Richmond Medical College. He was discharged for disability due to his heart disease on March 18, 1865, just two weeks before he left Richmond with his oldest brother Leroy to join the fleeing Confederate army on April 1, 1865.

After the war, he attended medial school at New York University, where he received is M.D. in 1867. Dr. Edwards became editor of the Virginia Medical Monthly and secretary of the Medical Society of Virginia, of which he was a founding member. He  died in 1910, and is buried with his parents and brothers in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, VA.

William Emory Edwards, Class of 1862 (A. B.) and 1883 (D.D.)

William Emory Edwards, younger brother to Leroy Summerfield Edwards (class of 1859) and middle son of prominent Methodist minister John Ellis Edwards, received a commission as chaplain in the Confederate army in the summer of 1863 and served as post chaplain from July 1863-1865 at Fort Darling at Drewry's Bluff, VA. After the war, he served as a minister in a several Virginia churches until he became Professor of Moral Philosophy (religious studies) at R-MC in 1899, where he remained until his death in 1903. His reminiscence of the college from 1860-1862 was published in Richard Irby's History of Randolph-Macon College. Several of the letters in the Leroy S. Edwards collection are to his brother "Will" or "Willie," and other letters ask of news about him.

Benjamin Irby Scott, Class of 1860

Benjamin Irby Scott was a schoolteacher residing in Athens, TN, when he enlisted on May 29, 1861 in Co. G of the 18th VA infantry. On April 20, 1862, he was promoted to corporal. He was wounded June 27, 1862 at Gaines' Mill, Va, and then killed and left on the field on September 14, 1862 near Boonsboro, MD, at the Battle of South Mountain. Captain Richard Irby, class of 1844, refers to Scott as "one of the best men in the Regiment" in his regimental history published in 1878, Historical Sketch of the Nottoway Grays: Afterwards Company G, Eighteenth Virginia Regiment, Army of Northern Virginia.

George Beverly Finch, Class of 1860

Finch was a teacher when he enlisted in Clarksville, VA as a private in Company E of the 14th VA Infantry. He was promoted to 2nd lieutenant on August 1, 1862. The Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography indicates he was captain of his company at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he was wounded in the hip on July 3, 1863 during Pickett's Charge while leading his company in the charge. The bullet would not be removed until 20 years later. After the war, he was a lawyer in Mecklenburg County, VA, and served as the President of the National Bank of Boydton. Finch died in Boydton on September 13, 1900.

William H. Farrar, student 1859-1862

William H. Farrar enlisted in Company F of the 14th Virginia Infantry on July 21, 1861 at Boydton, Virginia when he was 19 years old. He was wounded and captured on the third day at Gettysburg and returned to Confederate forces on April 1, 1864. He was wounded again on May 10, 1864 at Chester Station, Virginia which resulted in the amputation of his thumb at Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond. After, he was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant on November 3, 1864. He surrendered with the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865 at Appomatox Court House. Farrar died in 1916 in Baskerville, Mecklenburg County, Virginia.

William Thomas Merritt, Class of 1856 (B.A.) and 1859 (M.A.)

Merritt graduated from Randolph-Macon's medical school in 1859 and continued his medical studies at the University of Virginia.  He enlisted on November 13, 1861 as Assistant Surgeon of the 6th VA Infantry at the rank of captain. He died of typhoid fever in Richmond in August, 1862.

John Summerfield Jenkins, student 1849-1850

Jenkins enlisted in Portsmouth, VA, on April 22, 1862 as a private in Co. C of the 16th VA Infantry. He was promoted on November 17, 1862 to Adjutant and transferred to the 14th VA Infantry. He was killed during Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863.

Jenkins attended the University of Virginia and was a lawyer at the time of his enlistment.

J. G. S. Boyd, Class of 1845 (A.B.) and 1848 (A.M.)

John Granville Sharpe Boyd, a lawyer in Buckingham County, VA, joined Co. E of the 20th VA Infantry, the Buckingham Lee Guard, on May 20, 1861 as 2nd Lieutenant. He was killed shortly thereafter, on July 11, 1861 at the Battle of Rich Mountain, WV. Boyd is buried in Mt Iser Cemetery, Randolph County, WV. On November 11, 1861, a resolution from the bar deploring his "tragical and untimely end" and praising his  "dauntless courage and self-sacrificing heroism" was entered into the court session record in Buckingham County.

Brigadier General Nathan George “Shanks” Evans, student, dates unknown

Born on February 6, 1824 in Marion County, South Carolina, Nathan George Evans attended Randolph-Macon College before he was eighteen. He graduated from West Point in 1848 with a lieutenancy in the U. S. 2nd Cavalry. Evans saw duty in the 1850s and earned notoriety as an Indian fighter. In 1860 Evans resigned his cavalry commission to enter Confederate service as a colonel. He is best known for the role he played at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, but also saw action from Second Manassas to Petersburg. After the War, Evans became a high school teacher and died in 1868.