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328 Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

Upon the occasion of his death the James G. Kenan Chapter,
Daughters of the Confederacy, and the Confederate Veterans

of Warsaw, in convention assembled, passed the following reso-
lutions:

ist. That by the death of Captain Kenan, the chapter of the Daugh-
ters which bears his name has lost a devoted friend and counselor ; the
Confederate Veterans, a noble comrade and an ever-ready champion of

the cause which they so nobly espoused, and his bereaved family, a
devoted husband and loving father.

2d. That a copy of these resolutions be spread upon the minutes of
the Daughters, a copy be sent the family, and a copy to each county
paper, and one to some State paper.

Captain Kenan was the last of a family of three sons and a
daughter of the late Owen R. Kenan and was born near Kenans-
ville, of Scotch-Irish parentage, being descended from Thomas
Kenan, who settled in Duplin County about one hundred and
seventy-five years ago. ‘The family has been for years one of
the most prominent in the State of North Carolina.

He served the county of Duplin several terms as sheriff and
enjoyed the confidence and esteem of his fellow-citizens in every
walk of life. At the outbreak of the war, with his distinguished
brothers, William Rand Kenan and Thomas S. Kenan, he early
enlisted in the cause of the Confederacy, and was captain of a
company in the Forty-third Regiment, North Carolina Troops,
Confederate States Army. He was captured at Gettysburg and
confined later in a Federal prison. He was a gallant soldier
and numbered among his comrades many of the veterans of the
war throughout Eastern Carolina.

Captain Kenan was about seventy-two years old. He is sur-
vived by his wife, three sons, and one daughter, his children
being Dr. Owen Kenan of New York, resident physician for the
season at the chain of Palm Beach hotels, Mr. Thomas S. Kenan,
of Atlanta, Graham Kenan, Esq., of the law firm of Kenan &
Stacy, in Wilmington, and Miss Emily Kenan, of Kenansville.

Thomas 8. Kenan: In 1735, when Henry McCulloh and a
number of Irish gentlemen obtained from the King grants in the
province of Carolina for more than one million acres of land,
several large tracts were laid off for them in upper New Han-
over, now embraced in Duplin and Sampson Counties, in which
settlers from the north of Ireland located, among them Colonel
Sampson and Thomas Kenan. From that day the Kenan family
has remained in the settlement, or near to it, where their ances-

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The War Between the States 329

tors in America first located. “A race of gentlemen,’ writes
Captain Ashe in his Biographical History of North Carolina,
“ever observant of their obligations, they have always been held
in high esteem and have taken a prominent part in regard to all
great questions that have concerned the public welfare.” The
Kenan family came from Scotland to Ireland in 1700; thence
to the Cape Fear in 1735; and in the succeeding generation
James Kenan was a zealous, daring, and brilliant patriot officer
during the War of Independence. His son, Thomas, after serv-
ing in the General Assembly, was a member of the United States
Congress from 1805 to 1811, and his grandson, Owen R. Kenan,
the father of Col. Thomas Stephen Kenan, also served several
terms in the General Assembly and was a member of the Con-

federate Congress.
Thomas Stephen Kenan obtained his early education at the old

Grove Academy, of Kenansville, under the venerated Rev. James
Menzies Sprunt. This was an institution that educated many
of the brightest young men of the Cape Fear section. He was
afterwards at the Central Military Institute in Selma, Alabama,
and later entered Wake Forest College. In 1857 he was gradu-
ated from the University of North Carolina with the degree of
A.B., and the next year the University conferred upon him the
degree of A.M. Having determined to become a lawyer, he
spent two years studying with Chief Justice Pearson, at Rich-
mond Hill, and entered upon the practice of law at Kenansville
in 1860. In 1859 the Duplin Rifles was organized in Kenans-
ville, and in 1861 this company volunteered under Thomas
Stephen Kenan as its captain, and was assigned to the First,
or Bethel, Regiment, and afterwards to the Second Regiment.
At the end of the year, it was reorganized and assigned to the
Forty-third Regiment, and Colonel Kenan was made lieutenant
colonel, on April 24, 1862, becoming colonel. His regiment was
assigned to Daniel’s brigade and was engaged in the operations
before Richmond, Colonel Kenan winning high laurels. The
next year, as a part of Rhodes’s division, the Forty-third under
Colonel Kenan carried the flag to Carlisle, Pa. Returning to
Gettysburg on the first of July, Colonel Kenan was in the hard
fight on Seminary Ridge that day and was under fire all the ©
next day, his regiment supporting a battery of artillery on
Seminary Ridge, and on the third day he participated in the
desperate assault on Culp’s Hill. While leading a charge, he
fell severely wounded, and, while being borne to the rear in an