Thursday, July 31, 2014

Joseph T. Reese, A.B. 1842 and A.M. 1845

Reese was a physician in Newnan,  Coweta County, GA and operated a drug store at the beginning of the war. On December 29, 1863, he accepted a position as surgeon for the Georgia militia for the 36th Senatorial district. His name also appears on a muster role for the Newnan militia, Georgia's 646th military district.  A Confederate military hospital was established in Newnan in 1863, so Dr. Reese is likely to have treated some of the more than 10,000 military patients that were transported to the town.

After the war, Dr.Reese continued to run his drug store and was a prominent citizen in Newnan, building its first opera house. He died on July 31, 1897 and is believed to be buried with his wife in Newnan's Oak Hill Cemetery.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Joseph Ellett Maxey, student 1859-1861

Maxey enlisted on July 4, 1861 as a private in Co. A of the 1st Regiment Virginia Artillery (the company designation changed numerous times; later Co. K,1st VA Artillery; the 2nd Co., Richmond Howitzers, Virginia Howitzers Light Artillery; and Captain Jones' Co., Cutshaw's Battn. of Reserve Artillery). He was on sick leave at home in early 1862, returning to service in February. Maxey was detailed as a teamster, or wagon driver, for the quarter master for much of 1863. He was promoted to corporal on March 29, 1864. On July 4, 1864, he was admitted to Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, VA with a fever. Maxey was paroled on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Court House, VA.

He returned home to Powhatan County, VA after the war, where he was a teacher in 1870. By 1880, he was farming and serving as the county surveyor. At the time of his death in June 1900, he was a merchant.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Thomas M. Newby, student 1842-1843

Thomas Mullin (variantly Mullen) Newby, brother of Joseph F. and Nathan, attended the University of North Carolina after leaving R-MC, graduating in 1846. Although there is no evidence that Thomas Newby had any military service, he was a casualty of the war. Newby was a wealthy farmer in Elizabeth City, Pasquotank County, NC at the beginning of the war. By 1862, he was living with his elderly father and mother in Perquimans County, NC, where newspaper accounts indicate Yankee soldiers landed from a gunboat on November 20, 1862, entered the home and shot and killed Newby, then beat his father and plundered and robbed the home.  

Monday, July 28, 2014

Joseph F. Newby, student 1841-1842

Newby, brother of Nathan and Thomas M. Newby, was a farmer in Perquimans, NC at the outbreak of the war. He served as an agent in the Commissary Department for the John Harvey Guards, Co. H of the 7th NC Infantry, in the summer and fall of 1861. His letter of request for a presidential pardon, dated Sept. 5, 1865, states that "he was an active sympathiser with the South, having furnished some supplies for its army and for a short period of time having served as Commissary of his county militia while called into the field." His pardon was issued on Feb. 1, 1866.

After the war, Newby farmed in Perquimans County, NC until his death on May 29, 1896.

Friday, July 25, 2014

Nathan Newby, student 1848-1849

Newby, brother of Joseph F. and Thomas M. Newby, attended the University of North Carolina after leaving R-MC, graduating in 1852. He was a wealthy farmer in Perquimans County, NC and serving in the state legislature at the beginning of the war, serving in the House of Commons from 1858-1862. Newby was a secessionist and identified with the Oppositionist Party. In his August 28, 1865 application for a presidential pardon, Newby states that he "was an active sympathiser with the South, and during the last years of its existence sold from time to time considerable amounts of supplies to its army agents, but had never received or exercised any agency himself," failing to disclose his service in the state's Confederate legislature or that he had provided supplies as early as Nov. 1861.  He received a presidential pardon on Feb. 1, 1866.

Newby continued to farm in Perquimans County, NC until his death on July 11, 1883. He is buried in Cedarwood Cemetery in Hertford, NC.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Robert Ballard Fontaine, student 1859-1860

Fontaine (variantly spelled Fontain, Fountain and Fountaine) enlisted as a private in Co. D of the 38th VA Infantry on October 14, 1864. He was captured on April 1, 1865 at White Oak Road, VA and sent on April 5, 1865 from City Point, VA to the prison camp at Point Lookout, MD. The hospital records indicate Fontaine died there of chronic diarrhea on May 22, 1865 and was buried in the prisoner of war graveyard. In 1870, the remains from the two prisoner graveyards were moved and placed in a mass grave at Point Lookout Confederate Cemetery.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Thomas W. Robeson, student 1853-1854

Robeson, variantly spelled Roberson, was a farmer and involved in manufacturing in Bladen County, NC when he enlisted on April 26, 1861 as a private in the Bladen Guards, Co. K of the 8th NC Infantry, later the 18th NC Infantry. He was promoted to sergeant on July 27, 1861 and to 2nd lieutenant on March 3, 1862. He was discharged on April 24, 1862 .

Robeson was a farmer in Bladen County in the 1870 census, but fails to appear in the 1880 census.