[540] condition of the country. His regiment was never surrendered. Among the battles in which he participated were those of Chester Station, Va.; Drewry's Bluff, Charles City, Trevilian's, White House, Reams' Station, skirmishes on the Vaughn Road, Burgess' Mill, Averasboro, and Bentonville, N. C. He was in thirty or forty cavalry skirmishes in Virginia, a considerable number on the South Carolina coast, and almost daily skirmishing in the two Carolinas from February 14 to April 13, 1865. At Lynch's creek, in March, 1865, he was slightly wounded, and his horse was shot under him. After the close of hostilities Colonel Davis returned to Charleston and again engaged in business. Since 1880 he has held the position of secretary and treasurer of the city water works.
Francis W. Dawson, ordnance officer on the staffs of Generals Longstreet and Fitzhugh Lee, and after the war for many years prominent in journalism at Charleston, was a native of England. He was twenty-one years of age when the war of the Confederacy began in 1861, and feeling a sincere sympathy with the Southern people in their struggle for independence, determined to join in the war. An opportunity being offered, by the arrival of the Confederate cruiser Nashville at Southampton, he sailed with that vessel as a seaman, in February, 1862, reaching Beaufort late in the same month. He was at once commissioned a master's mate in the Confederate navy, and was ordered to report to Commodore Forrest at Richmond. Being assigned to the gunboat Beaufort, under Lieut. W. H. Parker, at Norfolk, he took part in the attempt to force the Monitor to action April 11th. Subsequently at Richmond he was assigned to duty on a floating battery on the James river, but desiring more active service resigned his commission in the navy and enlisted in Purcell's battery, Field's brigade, A. P. Hill's division. In his first fight, at Mechanicsville, he was badly wounded by a fragment of shell, and though he kept his place till nightfall, was disabled for some time, during which he was commissioned first lieutenant for ordnance duty. In this capacity he was assigned to Longstreet's corps, with which he was first on duty at South Mountain. On his way toward Sharpsburg, in charge of the ordnance trains of the corps, he was captured
