REFERENCE: 2030 Va Cou
Col. Jones was born in Macon, Georgia, November 26, 1844. In his infancy
his parents removed to Montgomery, which has since been his home. At the
outbreak of the war he was a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute,
and was ordered with other cadets, to Richmond to drill the volunteers
there.
In 1862 he served in Jackson's celebrated valley campaign, and at its
conclusion enlisted in the cavalry. Gen. Jackson, who as a professor at
the Institute, had known young Jones as a cadet, gave him a
recommendation for appointment in the regular army. Upon this Gen. John
B. Gordon appointed young Jones as his Aide-de-Camp. He served on Gen.
Gordon's staff during the remainder of the war, being twice promoted and
several times wounded.
For "gallant conduct at Bristoe" he was commended in orders and
personally thanked by Gen. Robert E. Lee. The same officer sent his
thanks to the brave young Alabamian for his services at Hare's Hill,
where, in the presence of Gen. Lee, young Jones volunteered to cross the
space between the works of the two armies, which was plowed by a terrific
fire of cannon and small arms, to bear Gordon's order for the withdrawal
of his troops from the positions they had captured.
He was in the last action at Appomattox, and bore one of the flags of
truce sent into the enemies' lines just before the surrender.
Gen. Gordon says of him:
"He was an invaluable officer, and young as he was, gave evidence of high
military talent. He was assigned to my staff when a beardless boy, and
was with me in whatever trials I experinced myself during the war. He
never failed to discharge his duty, not only willingly, but gladly,
whatever may be the promised cost. I may truthfully say, without one
particular of exaggeration, that if the facts connected with his services
in the Confederate army were written out it would furnish as thrilling a
romance as one ever read."
At the close of the war he returned home and engaged in planting and at
the same time read law in the office of the late John A. Elmore, and
afterwards under the direction of his near neighbor and friend, the late
Chief Justice A. J. Walker. He was admitted to the bar in 1866.
His planting operations resulted disastrously. He surrendered everything
to creditors, not even reserving a homestead, and devoted a large share
of his professional earnings afterwards to paying these debts.
In 1868 he was one of the editors of the Daily Picayune, a Democratic
paper published at Montgomery, and evinced much ability as a writer. In
1869, he was one of the Democratic nominees for aldermen of the city, but
was defeated with the rest of the ticket.
His oration at Montgomery on Memorial Day, 1874, was a classical
production full of thought and beauty, and at once brought him
prominently before the country. The press throughout the Union published
extensive extracts from it, pronouncing them high types of Southern
oratory and feeling. The earnest and thoughtful words of the young
Confederate, who would not wrong the cause by arguing its rights, and yet
hoped that "something higher and nobler would rise from the graves of all
our heroic dead than a sectional vendetta between the North and the
South," created a profound impression at the North; and were not the
least among the happy causes which combined in 1874, to check the further
tide of vindictiveness against the Southern people.
He was one of Gov. Houston's military staff in 1874, but resigned in 1876
to accept the Captaincy of the Montgomery Greys. He resigned the command
of the Greys in 1880 to accept the colonelcy of the Second Regiment of
State troops, which office he still holds. This regiment is one of the
best in the country, and in morale, discipline, and manly deportment is
excelled by none. On several occassions portions of it have been ordered
out under his command to suppress lawlessness, an