Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:
chapter:
Shall
Cromwell
have a statue?
Graduates of the
United States Military Academy
at
West Point, N. Y.
, [from the
Richmond, Va.
, Dispatch,
March
30
,
April
6
,
27
, and
May
12
,
1902
.]
Treatment and exchange of prisoners.
Battle of Cedar Creek
,
Va.
,
Oct.
19th
,
1864
.
Narrative of events and observations connected with the wounding of General T. J. (
Stonewall
)
Jackson
.
chapter 1.6
Lee
,
Davis
and
Lincoln
.
chapter 1.8
The last tragedy of the war. [from the
New Orleans, La.
,
Picayune
,
January
18
,
1903
.]
chapter 1.10chapter 1.11chapter 1.12chapter 1.13chapter 1.14chapter 1.15
Elliott
Grays
of
Manchester, Va.
[from the
Richmond, Va.
, times,
November
28
,
1902
.]
Thrilling Chapter [from the
Richmond
, Va, Dispatch,
July
21
,
1902
.]
chapter 1.18chapter 1.19chapter 1.20chapter 1.21chapter 1.22chapter 1.23chapter 1.24
Fatal wounding of General J. E. B
Stuart
.
chapter 1.26chapter 1.27
Johnson's Island
.
Refused to burn it. [from the
Richmond, Va.
, Dispatch,
April
27
,
1902
.]
chapter 1.30chapter 1.31
The campaign and battle of
Lynchburg
.
Appendix.
chapter 1.34chapter 1.35chapter 1.36
Roll and roster of
Pelham
's,
chapter 1.38chapter 1.39
Why we failed to win.
Recollections of
Cedar Creek
and
Fisher's Hill
,
October
19th
,
1864
.
Index
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
![>](/img/east.gif)
![>](/img/east.gif)
![>](/img/east.gif)
![>](/img/east.gif)
![view as XML](/img/xml.gif)
[340]
even in that State but for being commingled with fiction the daring deeds and brilliant bravery of ‘Jeb’ Stuart's ‘boy artillerist’ would be almost mere tradition when the last Confederate shall have passed away.
Indeed, while writers almost innumerable—both historical and penny-a-liners—have, in song and story, traced the career of lesser light of higher rank, they have scarcely mentioned much less eulogized the beardless boy whom General Robert E. Lee, in his report of Fredericksburg, termed ‘the gallant Pelham,’ thus knighting him upon the field.
Of this same youth the London Times, in chronicling his death in 1863, said: ‘For his age no soldier on either side in this war (Confederate) has won such fame as has young Pelham.’
John Pelham came from old Kentucky stock, his father, Dr. Atkinson Pelham, having removed from this State to Calhoun county, Ala., in 1837.
Young Pelham was appointed a cadet at West Point in 1856 by the representative in Congress from the Talladega (Ala.) district, Hon. S. W. Harris.
The only five-year class in the history of the academy was organized that year, which accounts for his being there at the opening of the war. Like many other West Pointers who have made gallant soldiers, his standing in his classes was low, but his commission was passed on, and he would have received it had he not resigned a week before commencement to go South.
As a cadet he had a dash and a soldierly bearing, and it is related that when he started to walk across the parade grounds, or from one quarter to another, he went straight as a ‘bee line’ and never looked back, no matter how much noise the other cadets made in his rear.
He was considered the best athlete at West Point, and was there noted for fencing and boxing.
Then, as now, at the academy, a cat with its reputed plurality of lives would be dead a dozen times in taking half the chances those laughing cadets would eagerly seek in the cavalry drill, but Pelham excelled them all. The Prince of Wales was struck with his horsemanship when he visited the academy in 1860.
His horseback riding was marvellous, and went down from class to class as a sort of tradition, and long years after he had met a soldier's death the cadets would relate to gaping plebes how Pelham rode.
In 1861, when the laughing blue of the Southland sky was overcast by the dark cloud of civil strife and Alabama called to her sons in every clime to come to her defence, Pelham resigned his cadetship at the academy and started South.
At New Albany, Ind., he was intercepted by the Federal authorities, for it was known there
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.
show
Browse Bar
hide
Places (automatically extracted)
View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.
Sort places
alphabetically,
as they appear on the page,
by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
West Point (Virginia, United States) (2)Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Talladega (Alabama, United States) (1)
New Albany (Indiana, United States) (1)
Fredericksburg, Va. (Virginia, United States) (1)
Cambria (United Kingdom) (1)
Calhoun (Alabama, United States) (1)
Alabama (Alabama, United States) (1)
Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.
hide
People (automatically extracted)
Sort people
alphabetically,
as they appear on the page,
by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Atkinson Pelham (5)Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
John Pelham (2)
J. E. B. Stuart (1)
Robert Edward Lee (1)
Jeb (1)
S. W. Harris (1)
hide
Dates (automatically extracted)
Sort dates
alphabetically,
as they appear on the page,
by frequency
Click on a date to search for it in this document.
1863 AD (1)Click on a date to search for it in this document.
1861 AD (1)
1860 AD (1)
1856 AD (1)
1837 AD (1)
hide
Search
hide
Display Preferences