July 14th, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/14/2011
He Writes of the First Confederate Officer Killed in Battle War-date Confederate officer’s Autograph Letter Signed by Captain George Bouton, 1pp. octavo, June 3, 1861,Culpepper Court House, and reads in part: “...We are here at Culpeper yet doing but little, it is true we drill every day but our progress is slow. We have but 46 men which is not enough to muster us into service with...it is a matter of regret with me that I did not join some volunteer company as a private and been relieved of the care and responsibility attached to the position...a few troops had an engagement at Fairfax Ct. House on Saturday morning last . Capt Marr [17th Virginia Infantry] of Fauquier was killed, about 7 of the enemy killed & 3 taken prisoners & a number of horses taken...” Fine condition. John Quincy Marr (1825-1861) Civil War Confederate Army Officer. Born in Warrenton, Virginia, he graduated 2nd in the 1846 class of the Virginia Military Institute, later, for a time he taught there, then took over management of family land holdings. In the years before the Civil War he was county treasurer, sheriff, and presiding justice of county courts. Following John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859, he organized the Warrenton Rifles militia for home defense and in 1861 sat as a delegate in the Virginia secession convention. Commissioned Lieutenant Colonel on May 5, 1861, he served on garrison duty with the Warrenton Rifles at Dumfries, Bristoe Station, and Fairfax Court House. In the predawn hours of June 1, 50 men of the 2nd United States Cavalry under Lieutenant Charles H. Tompkins rode through Fairfax Court House firing their weapons. One random bullet killed him while he was standing in a clover field at the roadside; thus making him the first Confederate officer killed in the war. His body was undiscovered for a few hours, while others skirmished with the 2nd Cavalry, a few more casualties were sustained in the fighting. In 1904 he was memorialized with a stone monument at Fairfax Court House. His uniform shako cap, jacket, epaulets, overcoat and sword are in the collection of the Museum of the Confederacy, in Richmond, Virginia.
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