326 Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

Theodore C. James was an adjutant in the Third Regiment.
In writing of him Captain Cowan and Captain Metts say:
“Adjutant Theodore C. James has also crossed the narrow
streath of death. Our pen falters when we attempt to pay
tribute to his memory; companion of our youth, friend of our
manhood. For him to espouse a cause was to make it a part of
his very self. Intrepid, no more courageous soldier trod the
soil of any battlefield upon which the Army of Northern Vir-
ginia encountered a foe. The impulses of his nature were mag-
nanimous; no groveling thoughts unbalanced the equity of his
judgment. True to his friends and to principle, he remained as

‘Constant as the Northern Star

Of whose true, fixt, and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.’

Leaving his right arm upon a battlefield in Virginia, and exempt
for that cause from further military duty, he disdained any
privilege which such disability brought to him, and continued
in active service until the last shot had been fired, ‘arms stacked’
forever.”

Stephen Jewett, when sixteen years of age, joined Ripley’s
brigade, Forty-fourth Georgia Regiment of Infantry, near Rich-
mond, July 1, 1862, just after the Seven Days’ Battle; and he
served with that regiment until May 10, 1864, never missing a
day’s service, skirmish, or battle in which his regiment partici-
pated. He was in the engagements at South Mountain, Sharps-
burg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Warrenton Springs,
Morton’s Ford, the Wilderness, Gettysburg, and Spottsylvania
where he was captured, May 10, 1864, and taken to Fort Dela-
ware. He remained a prisoner of war until March 10, 1865,
when he was sent back to Richmond on parole, and was on parole
furlough when the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia
ended the war. He entered the army as a private when he could
scarcely carry a musket, and he continued to serve throughout
the war in that capacity with ever increasing efficiency. Stead-
fastness, tenacity of purpose, cheerfulness in devotion to duty, a
high sense of integrity, have marked his career from boyhood to
comparatively old age.

J. Pembroke Jones, a prominent officer in the United States
Navy, resigned his commission and joined the Confederate
Navy. He was first lieutenant commanding on the iron-
clad sloop-of-war Raleigh, which carried four guns, and which
attacked and broke the Cape Fear blockade. He served with

 

The War Between the States 327

distinction in several departments of the Confederate Navy, and
after the war was employed by the Argentine Republic upon

important military defenses.
James G. Kenan: “Man must endure his going hence even

as his coming hither, ripeness is all.”

On the 9th of January, 1912, James G. Kenan went, as must
all mortal men, back upon the pathway by which he came—back
to the great unknown. His sun went down after it reached the
zenith and began receding toward the west. When it set be-
yond our vision, darkness fell upon thousands of devoted and
admiring friends, and many hearts were sad.

Some men flower early; others late. Captain Kenan was a
noted man in early life, and was at his best when the final sum-
mons came. When he passed away he left an enviable record
as a soldier, public official, and private citizen, and the work he

did will grow brighter and brighter as the years pass until
it becomes his lasting monument, more enduring than marble

and brass and forever sacred in the hearts of his grateful coun-
trymen. His deeds of kindness, of charity, and of generosity
will ever keep alive his memory and frequently call to recollec-
tion the glory of his name.

Captain Kenan was a true man, a lover of justice, a believer
in the supremacy of the law, a friend of every cause that lacked
assistance. In his views he was broad and liberal, had charity
for all, trusted the people, and never lost faith in humanity.

He was a fine type of the Southern gentleman of the old
school, beiug the descendant of a long line of Southern ancestry ;
but still he was a plain, simple man, who loved his fellow-man,
a friend of the toiler and an eloquent advocate of the oppressed.
He had faith in his Creator sufliciently abiding to illumine his
soul when he reached the river which all of us must some day
cross. Not given to loud professions or vain boastings of a
religious experience, yet deep down in his heart was a well of
love and trust which was constant in its flow towards the Saviour
of mankind. During all his life he exemplified the human side
of religion by doing what he believed to be right. In this respect
his faith was fixed. His purposes were strong. His constant
effort was to lift all persons with whom he associated to higher
conceptions of life and duty.

His personal character was as spotless as a maiden’s, and as

unsullied as a ray of light. The memory of his just, virtuous,
and upright life will linger in the minds of all who knew him.