By: History.com Editors

1865

Confederate general John Pegram killed

History.com Editors

Published: November 13, 2009

Last Updated: January 25, 2025

On February 6, 1865, Confederate General John Pegram, age 33, is killed at the Battle of Hatcher's Run (also called Dabney’s Mill), Virginia.

Confederate States of America

Find out what divided the men of the Civil War, and how in many ways they were more alike than different.

Pegram graduated from West Point in 1854, and served in various posts in the West before resigning his commission at the start of the Civil War. Pegram then received an appointment as a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate army. Sent to fight in western Virginia during the summer of 1861, he was captured by General George McClellan’s men at the Battle of Rich Mountain.

As part of a prisoner exchange in April 1862, Pegram was sent to serve with General Pierre G. T. Beauregard in Mississippi. FIghting in Tennessee and Kentucky, he earned a promotion to brigadier general. After the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, Pegram transferred to General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. He was wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864, but recovered to fight with General Jubal Early during the Shenandoah Valley campaign in the summer of 1864. That fall, he was sent to defend his native city of Petersburg, Virginia.

On January 19, 1865, Pegram married Hetty Cary, a prominent Richmond socialite. Even in the gloom of the ongoing siege, the ceremony was a grand affair attended by nearly all of the high-ranking Confederates, including President Jefferson Davis and his wife, Varina. One onlooker said of the bride that the “happy gleam of her beautiful brown eyes seemed to defy all sorrow.” Just three weeks later, Pegram’s body was returned to the same church, St. Paul’s Episcopal, and his young widow knelt beside his coffin as the minister who married them presided over the general’s funeral.

Timeline

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Citation Information

Article title
Confederate general John Pegram killed
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
March 25, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 25, 2025
Original Published Date
November 13, 2009

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