Brigadier General Gabriel Colvin Wharton's Display

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Brigadier General Gabriel Colvin Wharton* was elected major of the Forty-fifth Virginia Infantry Regiment in July 1861. This was one of the regiments organized by General Floyd in southwest Virginia. A month later he became colonel of the Fifty-first regiment, which he led through the Western Virginia campaign of General Floyd during the summer and fall of 1861. Accompanying Floyd to Kentucky early in 1862, he was assigned at Fort Donelson to the command of a brigade composed of his own and the Fifty-sixth Virginia regiment. In his report of the battle, General Pillow particularly commended the gallantry of Colonel Wharton and his brigade, who, after being under fire or fighting in the ditches four days, advanced and drove the enemy from their front on February 15th. On the next day, surrender having been decided upon, a considerable part of Floyd's command was brought away in safety, and Wharton rendered valuable service in preserving the government stores at Nashville. Subsequently, returning to southwest Virginia, he defeated a Federal regiment at Princeton, May 17, 1862, and in September participated in Loring's occupation of the Kanawha valley, as commander of the Third Brigade of the Army of Western Virginia. Subsequently, he was in command at the Narrows of New River with his own and Echols' Brigade, until February 1863, when he was stationed in the area of Abingdon, Virginia. When Gen. Sam Jones was ordered in July to send troops to Lee's army, Wharton was detached, and Jones sent word to Lee, "He is an admirable officer, has commanded a brigade for eighteen months, Let him command my troops until I come." He was stationed at Winchester, and was temporarily in charge of the Valley District. Soon afterward he was promoted brigadier-general and in August returned to his former station on the Virginia & Tennessee railroad. He was later transferred to General Longstreet's command in East Tennessee, until April 1864, when he was ordered to report to General Breckinridge. In command of his brigade of veterans he took a conspicuous part in the defeat of General Sigel at New Market, and served with honor in the Confederate lines at Cold Harbor. Returning toward the southwest for the defense of Lynchburg, he took part in the pursuit of Hunter down the valley and the expedition through Maryland to Washington. During the Shenandoah campaign he commanded a division comprising the infantry brigades of the old army of Western Virginia. After suffering severely during the valley battles of 1864, the division was badly cut up in the fight at Waynesboro, March 2, 1865. After the close of the war General Wharton lived at Radford.

* For a portion of the Valley Campaigns, General Gabriel Colvin Wharton was Thomas Legion's division commander. When Thomas' Legion received Special Order 267 ordering its return to Western North Carolina in December 1864, General Wharton stated to the Thomas Legion: "The patience and cheerful endurance of the toilsome march, brief rests and hard fighting which you and your gallant band ever exhibited has won my hearty commendation and leaves each of your patriotic command a record bright and unsullied." While serving with General Wharton in the valley, the Thomas Legion also engaged Generals Sheridan and Custer. Wharton was a Virginia Military Institute graduate-class of 1847.

Sources: Virginia Military Institute; Confederate Military History, Vol. III, pp. 684-685; Vernon H. Crow, Storm in the Mountains: Thomas' Confederate Legion of Cherokee Indians and Mountaineers, 102-58; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies; Texas Civil War Museum

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