Sandie Pendleton
Alexander Swift Pendleton | |
---|---|
Lieutenant Colonel CSA | |
Unit | Second Corps staff, Army of Northern Virginia |
Battles/wars | American Civil War |
Relations | Rev. Genl. William Nelson Pendleton, Edmund Pendleton |
Alexander Swift Pendleton (September 28, 1840 – September 23, 1864) was an officer on the staff of Confederate Generals
Early life and career
Sandie Pendleton was born in
When Sandie was 13, the family moved to Lexington, Virginia, because of the free tuition available at Washington College to ministers' sons, as well as because Latimer Parish (Grace Episcopal Church)[3] offered Rev. Pendleton a job and he thought he could also supplement his income by opening a boarding school for younger boys. Sandie Pendleton completed the course of studies at Washington College in three years, during which he met Maj. Thomas Jackson (later nicknamed Stonewall) of the VMI faculty through the Graham literary society. Sandie graduated at the top of his class in 1857 and delivered the commencement address on the character of Virginia exemplified in the patriots of 1776 such as his ancestors. Along with intellect, honor, and a spirit of independence, Pendleton extolled "a firm adherence to right, and a reverence for the wise and holy ruler of the universe."[4] Sandie Pendleton remained in Lexington for the next two years, teaching mathematics and Latin at his alma mater, as well as helping his father at the school for boys and visiting relatives in Eastern Virginia.
By 1859, Sandie Pendleton had earned enough money to begin studies at the University of Virginia. During his first year, he completed half of the required coursework for a degree, but the civil war broke out in April of his second year, with the fall of Fort Sumter and as Virginia troops went toward Harpers Ferry to seize the federal arsenal.[5] Because his family wanted Sandie to receive his degree on July 1, he sought a deferment to that date from the government in Richmond, but was denied. Thus, pursuant to his commission as a second lieutenant in the Provisional Army of Virginia, Sandie Pendleton left for Harpers Ferry on June 11, having completed only four of seven examinations necessary for the master's degree, and not having submitted the required essay.[6]
Civil War
At Harper's Ferry, Sandie Pendleton reported for duty and temporarily worked with the
After accompanying Jackson's corpse to its final resting place back at Lexington in the Shenandoah Valley, Pendleton returned to duty with the
The
Family and genealogy
Sandie Pendleton met Catherine "Kate" Carter Corbin when General "Stonewall" Jackson and his troops were stationed at her father's Moss Neck Manor near Fredericksburg during the winter of 1862. The two were engaged just before the Chancellorsville campaign, and married on December 29, 1863 at Moss Neck Manor. Kate was pregnant at the time of Sandie's death, and gave birth to a son, named Sandie after his father, a month later. The boy contracted diphtheria and died in September 1865. Kate Corbin had moved to Lexington after her marriage, and eventually married former Confederate naval officer and professor John Mercer Brooke. They had three children. She is buried beside her second husband in Lexington, near her first husband and where Stonewall Jackson was originally buried.
Kate Corbin was the daughter of James Parke Corbin, whose family had lived in the Rappahannock River valley for generations. A sister-in-law through Kate's brother, Spotswood Wellford Corbin, was Diana Fontaine Maury-Corbin, daughter of Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury who also had lived in Fredericksburg. Moss Neck Manor still stands and has been renovated. An ancestor of Kate, Richard Corbin succeeded Lord Dunmore when the latter fled Williamsburg, Virginia, and served as royal governor until the beginning of the American Revolution, when he was deposed as a Loyalist.
Sandie's family was also one of the
In popular media
Pendleton was portrayed by Jeremy London in the 2003 Civil War film Gods and Generals, and was a minor character in the Jeff Shaara book of the same name.
References
- ^ W.G. Bean, Stonewall's Man: Sandie Pendleton (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), p. 4 citing Susan Pendleton Lee, Memoirs of William Nelson Pendleton, D.D. Rector of Latimer Parish, Lexington, Virginia: Brigadier-General, C.S.A.; Chief of Artillery, Army of Northern Virginia (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1893)
- ^ Bean at p. 7 citing Lee at p. 103
- ^ http://genealogytrails.com/vir/rockbridge/church_religion_history.html, probably renamed after vestryman and former general http://releechurch.org/
- ^ Bean at p. 11 citing "The Cincinnati Oration, by A.S. Pendleton, July 2, 1857" William Nelson Pendleton Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina
- ^ Bean p.32
- ^ Bean at pp. 36-38.
- ^ Bean at pp. 42-43.
- ^ Bean at p. 4, citing Lee, Pendleton pp. 31, 14.