Raleigh Edward Colston
Raleigh Edward Colston , (born October 31, 1825 in Paris , France , † July 29, 1896 in Richmond , Virginia ), was a Brigadier General of the Confederate Army in the Civil War .
Life
Colston was born in Paris to American parents from Virginia. He came to the United States at the age of 17 and began studying at the Virginia Military Institute , graduating in 1846. He stayed at this institute as a professor until April 1861.
Immediately thereafter, he went to Richmond, Virginia to train a Corps cadet. In May he became Colonel of the 16th Virginia Infantry Regiment in Norfolk, Virginia and was given command of the protection of the south bank of the James River with headquarters in Smithfield . On December 24, 1861, Colston was promoted to Brigadier General and along with the 13th and 14th North Carolina Regiments and the 3rd Virginia Regiment he was given orders to defend Yorktown , Virginia. He later took part in the Battle of Williamsburg on May 5, 1862 , and in the Battle of Seven Pines on May 31 and June 1, 1862 . He then fell ill and did not resume work until December 1862.
After recovering, he served temporarily in Southern Virginia and North Carolina before being assigned to Trimble's (formerly "Stonewall" Jackson's ) division of the Army of Northern Virginia in early 1863 . Since Trimble had not resumed service after his wounding in the second battle at Bull Run , Colston (like his predecessor Taliaferro ) was assigned as senior brigade commander to lead the division.
In the Battle of Chancellorsville from May 2-4, 1863, Colston's division took part in Jackson's famous flank march and lost over 2,200 men in the heavy fighting that followed. Nevertheless, General Lee was dissatisfied with Colston after the battle, and he was not only replaced by Edward "Allegheny" Johnson , but also assigned to Savannah . It was not until April 1864 that he was ordered back to Virginia and participated under General Beauregard in the defense of Petersburg against Benjamin Franklin Butler . In July 1864 he was appointed site commander in Lynchburg and stayed there until the southern states surrendered.
After the war, Colston accepted a position at the Military Academy in Wilmington, North Carolina, until he enlisted for military service in Egypt in 1873 , where he undertook two campaigns of conquest in Sudan . He was seriously injured in a fall from a horse and remained partially paralyzed until the end of his life. Returned to the United States in 1879, Colston first devoted himself to his literary work and then took up a position in the US War Department in Washington, DC from 1882 to 1894. Colston spent the last years of his life up to his death on July 29, 1896, ill and impoverished in a soldiers' home in Richmond.
See also
literature
- David J. Eicher, The Civil War in Books: An Analytical Bibliography , University of Illinois, 1997, ISBN 0-252-02273-4
- Richard N. Current, Encyclopedia of the Confederacy (1993) (4 vol.) ( ISBN 0132759918 )
- John H. Eicher & David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands , Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3
- Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders , Louisiana State University Press, 1959, ISBN 0-8071-0823-5
Web links
- Raleigh Edward Colston in the database of Find a Grave (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Colston, Raleigh Edward |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | General of the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 31, 1825 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris , France |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 29, 1896 |
| Place of death | Richmond , Virginia |