James A. Seaman

In 1860 he was 16 years old and lived with his parents and 4 siblings in Moorefield, Hardy County, VA (now WV), a laborer like his father and older brother. Giving his age as 19, he enlisted as a Private in Company F, 33rd Virginia Infantry on 23 May 1861 in Moorefield. He was wounded at Gaines' Mill, VA on 1 July 1862 and was promoted to First Corporal on 1 September 1862.

He was wounded again, in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was absent, recovering, into December 1862 and was captured in Hardy County, VA on 17 (or 13) December 1862 while on furlough. He was sent to Camp Chase, OH on 23 December and was transferred to Camp Douglas, IL by 31 March 1863. He had been exchanged and was in a Richmond, VA hospital by 6 May 1863. He was listed as absent without leave in July and August, and has his pay docked, but was promoted to 4th Sergeant on 1 September 1863. He was with his Company to at least April 1864, the last record in his military file.

He was admitted to the bar in 1876 at Ripley, Jackson County, WV and practiced law there. He was County Commissioner of School Lands in 1883, was elected States Attorney there in 1888 and 1896, and continued in that office to at least 1900. He was Speaker of the West Virginia House of Delegates 1907-09, an attorney in Charleston in 1910, and Jackson County (WV) Divorce Commissioner in 1916.

His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3. Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860, 1900, and 1910, the West Virginia State Blue Book (1916), and The Slaughter of the Pfost-Greene Family (1989, online from USGenWeb), the story of his most famous case as a prosecutor. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Mary E "Mollie" Jarrett (1854-1946) in February 1878.

07/1844; West Columbia, Mason County, VA

1917; burial in Pine Hill Cemetery, Ripley, WV