The White Family in the Civil War

Alexander White

Alexander White, son of John Baker White, was born at Romney in 1841. Was educated at the Potomac Seminary ; was sworn in as deputy clerk of Hampshire County courts, April 26, 1860. He entered the Confederate service, April 19, 1861, as a private in Company K, Thirteenth Virginia Infantry. He remained with this company, participating in all the campaigns and battles in which the regiment was engaged, until September, 1864. This was A. P. Hill's old regiment, and it was engaged in almost every battle fought by the "Army of Northern Virginia" up to that time, serving not only around Richmond, but also in the Valley of Virginia and in the Maryland and Pennsylvania invasions. He became a sergeant in his company arid one of Stringfellow's sharpshooters. In the winter of 1863 he was recommended to the War Department for transfer and promotion for gallantry. This recommendation was approved by General Lee, and the Secretary of War in the spring of 1864, but the order never reached him until late in the summer of that year, when by virtue of it he became first lieutenant of Company C, Twenty-third Virginia Cavalry, in which capacity he served till the end of the war. After the war he went to Cumberland, Maryland, and was for nearly two years a clerk in the office of Horace Kesley, clerk of the circuit court of Alleghany County.

On July 23,1867, he married Miss Susan L. Williams, of Hardy County, and engaged in farm­ing, he residing upon the farm now occupied by the widow and children, on Capon River near the Hampshire line, until November, 1884, when he died of pneumonia. He was for some years assessor of Hardy County and was candidate for election on the O'Conner ticket in 1872. He was a good scholar, an extraordinarily fine conversationalist, with keen wit, fine imagination, great logical powers and a wonderful command of language. He was a writer of no mean ability, kind, generous, honorable, of perfect integrity, and he won and held the esteem and affections of those with whom he came in contact, and he accomplished in his short life in Capon a work for good which has kept his memory bright and dear in all that region. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, abundant in labors and in charity, and left to his children that heat of all heritages, a good name. One of his brothers, who knew him best, speaking of him, said "he was the best and brainiest White." As soldier, citizen, gentleman, Christian, he stood, like Saul of Tarsus, among his brethren higher than them all.
Maxwell & Swisher p.742-43

Captain C. S. White

Captain C. S. White was born in Romney, March 10, 1840, and was educated at the Potomac Seminary in his native town. He is a son of John Baker White, who was clerk of Hampshire County courts and an officer in the War of 1812, and a grandson of Judge Robert White, who was an officer in the Revolutionary War. Inspired with the same spirit and motives which led them into the military service of their State, he, on April 19,1861, entered the army of Virginia as a private in the Thirteenth Virginia Infantry. He served with that regiment in the Confederate army more than a year, until disabled and discharged, being promoted by successive steps to sergeant-major, and acting adjutant. During the winter of 1862 and 1863 he was first a clerk, and then head of a bureau in the Confederate treasury department. In the spring of 1863, having become able for cavalry, though not for infantry service, he resigned his position in the treasury department, and under a commission from President Davis raised within the Federal lines a company of two hundred men for special service. Declining promotion, he remained with his company till the close of the war, receiving one severe and two slight wounds. After the surrender of Lee, he started with part of his company to join Johnston in North Carolina, but Johnston having surrendered before they reached him, the men were disbanded, without surrender or parole, and he returned to his home, reaching there about June 1,1865. Upon his return home, being then an unpardoned and unparoled rebel, debarred by the then existing laws of his State from practising the profession of law for which he had been educated, he rented a farm and engaged successfully in agriculture.

In 1872, the legal disabilities of all ex-Confoderates having been removed, he was elected clerk of the county court of Hampshire, and has by successive re-elections held the place ever since. He was for a term clerk of the circuit court also, but declined to be a candidate for re­election to that office. In 1876, being chairman of the county Democratic committee, he organized and carried out the campaign in his county, which resulted in swelling the Democratic majority from four hundred and forty-nine in the preceding election to thirteen hundred and sixty-nine.

In 1877 he was appointed Fish Commissioner for the State of West Virginia; was reappointed by each succeeding Democratic governor, and was for most of the time president of the Commission.

In a senatorial convention at Moorefield, in August, 1886, he proposed and advocated, and after strong opposition on grounds of expediency, the convention adopted, the first straight tariff reform and anti-monopoly resolutions ever passed by a Democratic convention of West Virginia. He was among the very first of Hampshire Democrats to declare himself opposed to the financial policy of President Cleveland's administration. The Democrats of Hampshire were the first in the State to declare in public meeting their opposition to this policy, and Captain White made the first public speerh delivered in the county denouncing it, and was thereafter active in assisting in the organization of his party on that line of policy which resulted in the nomination of William J. Bryan for president. He has been a delegate to most of the senatorial and congressional conventions and to every gubernatorial convention (except one) of his party, and in these conventions has always been found with the majority of Hampshire's delegates supporting Democratic principles and usually successful candidates.

Independent in thought and character and fearless in following his convictions, he has never been a follower of party leaders, but always a consistent though liberal Democrat. He was from its formation until June 1897, commander of Camp Hampshire, Number 446, United Confederate Veterans, which was the first camp ever organized in West Virginia. He was also one of the first members of the committee of the Southern Memorial Association, appointed by General J. B. Gordon, and assisted in drafting the plans for the organization and consolidation of that association, and for securing the erection of the Battle Abbey of the South in accordance with the proposition of Charles B. Rouss. Failing health and press of private affairs determined him to resign this position early in 1897, and upon the acceptance of this resignation, Colonel Robert White of Wheeling was appointed in his stead. Captain White was married July 25,1867, to Miss Bessie J. Schultze, a daughter of Robert Schultze, of Edinburgh, Scotland, a member of the British diplomatic service residing at the time of her birth at Rotterdam, Holland. She was the mother of Captain White's son, John Baker White, and died June 24,1869. On May 26,1873, he was again married to Miss Catherine, daughter of Thomas G. Steele of Fairmont, West Virginia, and has by her four children, Louisa, Anna, Robert C. S., Jr., and Bessie. Captain White is a Mason, a member of Clinton Lodge at Romney, and a Past Master. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church.
Maxwell & Swisher p,743

Colonel Robert White

Colonel Robert White, now of the city of Wheeling, son of John Baker White, was born in Romney, February 7, 1833. He attended school in Romney, the last being that kept by Dr. Foote, at the Literary society building, now the West Virginia institution for the deaf and blind. He went into his father's office when fourteen years old and remained there until he entered the law school of John W. Brockenbrough, at Lexington, Virginia, where he studied his profession as a lawyer. He obtained his license to practise on March 30, 1854, and at once commenced the practice in Romney. Before the war, he was captain of the volunteer military company known as the Frontier Riflemen, which marched to Harper's Ferry on May 18,1861, and reported to Stonewall Jackson, who was then commander of the Virginia troops there. His company was assigned as Company I of the Thirteenth Virginia Regiment, then commanded by Colonel A. P. Hill. During the winter of 1861-62 he was assigned to duty in the ordnance depart­ment, until, in 1863, he was authorized to raise a battalion of cavalry. This battalion was raised and organized with him as its commanding officer. Some time afterwards it was united with other companies, and the Twenty-third Regiment of Virginia Cavalry was formed, of which he was commissioned the colonel, and in that service he continued until the surrender of General Lee.

Since the war Colonel White has been prominently connected with many of the important affairs in the State. In 1876 he was nominated at the Democratic Convention held in Charleston, without his asking, as the candidate for attorney-general, and was elected to that office by the largest majority ever given to any man in the State. The capital of the State was then at Wheeling, to which city he removed with his family in the spring of 1877. Many years ago he was appointed by the legislature as a member of the State board of trustees of Capon Springs as well as of Berkeley Springs. The latter position he resigned some years ago, but still holds his membership in the Capon Springs board.

A few years after the war, he prepared and attended to the passage of the act of the legisla­ture establishing the deaf, dumb, and blind institution of the State, and when the board of regents met at Wheeling to locate the institution, he attended that meeting, and through his earnest efforts the institution was located at Romney. He was appointed secretary of the board, arid for years, while living in Romney, acted as one of the regents. It was through his instru­mentality that the contract was made under which the South Branch Railway was afterwards built to Romney, and greatly through his efforts that the means were raised for its construction; aud from the beginning, until he removed to Wheeling, he was the president of the company.

As attorney-general of the State, he had charge of very important suits, in which at that time the State was interested, and among them the cases which involved the liability of railroad companies for taxation, which were decided by the Supreme Court of the State in favor of the State and which decision was afterwards affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, and by reason of which the railroad companies from that day to this have annually paid large sums, by way of taxation, into the State treasury. He was appointed and acted as the representative of the State upon the staff of the chief marshal at the dedication of the Washington monument, in Washington, February 22, 1885. He has twice represented Ohio County in the legislature; the first time at the session in 1885, and the last in 1891. At both sessions he was the chairman of the finance committee. He has held the office of solicitor of the city of Wheeling for two terms, and has twice been president of the Ohio County Bar Association. He was a member of the celebrated arbitration convention which met in Washington, in May, 1896, and is now the president of the West Virginia Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the Southern Memorial Association, and one of the executive committee of that board, and the chief officer of the West Virginia division of the United Confederate Veterans, with the rank in that organization of major-general. For years he has been one of the ruling elders in the First Presbyterian Church at Wheeling, and was a delegate to the Centennial General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church which met in Philadelphia. For years before leaving Romney, he was Master of Clinton Lodge of Masons, and in the year 1875 was Grand Master of Masons in the State of West Virginia, and as such laid the cornerstone of the capitol building at Wheeling.
Maxwell & Swisher p.741-2