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Tidbit: General Custers' best friend.

PostPosted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 5:23 am
by Bama Leroy
Reading the interesting "today in military history" thread I have seen Gen./Lt.C. Custers' name come up several times, as it well should.

I live in the town that reared, and sit 3/4 mile from the gravesite of Custers best friend from West Point Military Academy.

Maj. John Pelham.......who left the point at the outbreak of hostilities, and after 1st Bull Run was appointed to lead J.E.B. Stewarts' "Horse Artillery".

He led them at Antietam, and at Fredericksburg held off the entire Union flank for several hours with only 2 guns.......then, almost out of shot, with only one gun until concentrated enemy fire forced him to leave the field.

Not satisfied with ONLY leading light artillery, he heard there would be a Cavalry charge at Kellys Ford Va., and volunteered to take part in that charge, at which time he was downed by a piece of canon shrapnel, and died the next day, 3/17/1863 in Culpepper, Virginia.

on hearing of his death, Robert E.Lee wept over the 24 yr old "Boy Major" who once he had said of......."with a company of John Pelhams, i'd whip the Federal army".

as nicknamed by Lee....."The Gallant Pelham"

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