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.