Robert Miller Mitchell, Jr.

Son of a Lynchburg blacksmith,1 he was a student and gave his age as 18 on 22 April 1861 when he enrolled and was made 2nd Lieutenant in Company A, 11th Virginia Infantry. He was promoted to First Lieutenant on 11 September 1861 and to Captain of the Company on 26 April 1862, when Captain George Woodville Latham retired.2

He succeeded to command of the Regiment after Major Clement was wounded on 14 September.2

He was absent as a member of a Court Martial through October 1862, and was absent sick from November to April 1863. He was wounded in action on 3 July 1863 during Pickett's Charge, Gettysburg. In May 1864 he was again in command of the Regiment as senior officer present, and narrowly avoided capture during action immediately prior to the battle of Cold Harbor.2 Captain Mitchell was in command of what was left of the 11th on the Appomattox Campaign in 1865.3

He was in mining in California from 1868-1872, then a merchant and newspaperman in Augusta, GA. In 1883 he formed the company, built, and was President of the Augusta, Gibbons, and Sandersville (later Augusta Southern) Railroad. He moved to Atlanta, GA in 1896 and was also in other railroad, real estate, and insurance businesses. By 1920 had retired there.

Further details from his Compiled Service Records,4, online from fold3, family genealogists, and the US Census of 1860 and 1900-1920. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Lucy S. Raney (1852-) in November 1873 in Richmond County, GA and they had 6 children.

Although addressed as "Colonel" later in life, there's no military record of him at that rank.

The town of Mitchell, GA was named for him.

04/12/1845; Lynchburg, VA

06/02/1928; Decatur, GA; burial in Westview Cemetery, Atlanta, GA