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(1835 - 1891)
Home State: South Carolina
Branch of Service: Staff
Unit: Kershaw's Brigade
Before Sharpsburg
In 1860 he was a 25 year old clerk living with his brother William, a successful commercial merchant, and 2 sisters in Charleston, SC. Their father had died in 1840, and mother Mary Sommers Deas in 1856. He was First Lieutenant of the Palmetto Guard and commanded a mortar section in action at Cumming's Point on Morris Island opposite Fort Sumter, SC on 12-14 April 1861. He enrolled for Confederate service in Charleston, SC on 1 May and mustered as First Lieutenant of Company I of the 2nd South Carolina Infantry on 22 May. He was detailed to General Milledge Bonham's staff in July 1861 and assigned as Captain and Assistant Adjutant General to Brigadier General Kershaw on 22 March 1862.
On the Campaign
He was with General Kershaw in Maryland, and the General wrote later of action on Maryland Heights:
My thanks are especially due to Captain Holmes, assistant adjutant-general; Lieutenant Dwight, acting adjutant and inspector-general, and Lieutenant Doby, aide-de-camp, for most efficient and intelligent discharge of the staff duties on the field.
The rest of the War
He continued with General Kershaw and was wounded in the thigh at Gravel Hill Church, VA on 16 June 1864. He was afterward assigned to Colonel (later temporary Brigadier General) John D Kennedy, who then led Kershaw's Brigade, for the remainder of the war.
After the War
By 1880, going by Rutledge, he was a cotton factor (broker) at Summerville near Charleston, SC.
References & notes
His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3, Krick,2 and the Confederate Officers Card Index. The Kershaw quote above from his report of 25 September 1862. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860 & 1880. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
He married Emily Thurston Ford (1842-1901) and they had 5 children between 1868 and 1879. She was a member of the South Carolina Division, United Daughters of the Confederacy to at least 1896.
He is easily confused with another Charles Rutledge Holmes (1845-1919) from Charleston, SC, who was a Private in the 6th South Carolina Cavalry.
Birth
07/09/1835; Charleston, SC
Death
09/17/1891; Charleston, SC; burial in Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, SC
1 US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, Record Group No. 109 (War Department Collection of Confederate Records), Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1903-1927 [AotW citation 33789]
2 Krick, Robert E.L., Staff Officers in Gray; A Biographical Register of the Staff Officers in the Army of Northern Virginia, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003, p. 162 [AotW citation 33790]