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William T. Russel, M. D., surgeon of the Confederate States army, and now retired from a long and successful practice as a physician at Spartanburg, was born at Lewes, Del., in 1827. He is the son of William Russel, a native of Delaware, and a soldier of the war of 1812. His paternal ancestors, originally English, first settled in Broad-Kiln Hundred, Sussex county, Del., prior to 1700; and his maternal ancestor, Thomas Coleman, born in the north of Ireland, of Scotch parents, married Elizabeth Roe, and settled at Cornwall, Orange county, N. Y., about 1700. Dr. Russel was educated at Newark academy and Delaware college, being graduated at the latter in 1847, after which he began the study of medicine, and received his medical degree from the university of Pennsylvania in 1850. His first practice was at Canandaigua, N. Y., whence he removed to Spartanburg in 1854. At the beginning of hostilities in 1861 he was appointed assistant surgeon of Holcombe's legion, commanded by Col. P. F. Stevens, and in 1862 he was promoted to surgeon of the brigade of Gen. N. G. Evans. He served with this command in the army of Northern Virginia until ordered to Mississippi in 1863. He was with Johnston's army at the second investment of Jackson, and subsequently was on the Georgia coast until he returned to Virginia, and faithfully performed his duties during the desperate fighting and hardships of the closing days of the Confederacy. After the war he returned at once to Spartanburg and resumed his medical practice, attaining high rank in his profession. He is a member of the local and State medical associations, and of the Survivors' association of Confederate surgeons. In 1858 he was married to Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Lieut. Clement W. Stevens, of the old United States navy, who lost his life in Florida during the Indian wars. Her maternal grandfather was Dr. Peter Fayssoux, a French Huguenot, who served as a surgeon in the war of the Revolution. Dr. Russel has six children living: William H., Clement Stevens, Sarah Fayssoux, Helen Chalmers, Mary Elizabeth and Esther Angeleita.
Joseph O'Hear Sanders, principal of the graded school at Beaufort, S. C., was born in Charleston October 5, 1844, where he was reared and educated. About June, 1861, he enlisted as a private in a company called the