Dates

• Existence: 1838 - 1903

Biographical Note

Henry Kyd Douglas, son of Rev. Robert and Mary Robertson Douglas, was born near Shepherdstown, (West) Virginia on September 29, 1838. He graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1858, then attended law school in Lexington, Virginia. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Douglas was a practicing attorney in St. Louis. He returned to Virginia to join the Confederate Army and enlisted as a private in Company B of the 2nd Virginia Infantry. Rising through the ranks, Douglas eventually earned an officer's commission and was appointed to a position on the staff of General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Following Jackson's death in May 1863, Douglas served successively on the staffs of Confederate generals Edward Johnson, John B. Gordon, Jubal Early, John Pegram and James Walker. Douglas was seriously wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and was held prisoner for nine months at Johnson's Island. In 1865, he was exchanged and appointed commander of the Light Brigade, a position he held through the end of the war. Following the war, Douglas established a law practice in Winchester, Virginia, but soon moved to Hagerstown, Maryland and in 1891 was appointed a circuit court judge. He died in 1903 and was buried in Elmwood Cemetery of Shepherdstown, West Virginia. His wartime experiences were chronicled in the book I Rode with Stonewall, published in 1940.

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