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A.E. Doby
(1840 - 1864)
Home State: South Carolina
Education: South Carolina College, University of Virginia, Class of 1860
Branch of Service: Staff
Unit: Kershaw's Brigade
Before Sharpsburg
In 1860 he was 20 years old and lived with his brother James and their 55 slaves on their prosperous plantation near Winnsboro in the Fairfield District, SC. He enlisted in Camden, SC on 9 April 1861 and mustered for Confederate service as a Private in Captain, later Colonel, John Doby Kennedy's Company (later Company E) of the 2nd South Carolina Infantry on 23 May. He was detailed as an orderly to Brigadier General Kershaw then appointed Lieutenant and aide-de-camp to the General on 15 April (to date from 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 was promoted to Captain and ADC in 1864 and was killed by "friendly fire" in the same incident which killed Brigadier General Micah Jenkins and orderly Marcus Baum and wounded Major General James Longstreet, in the Wilderness, VA on 6 May 1864.
References & notes
His service from his Compiled Service Records,1 online from fold3, Krick,2 and the Confederate Officers Card Index. His death details from Kershaw's Wilderness Report in the OR.3 The Kershaw quote above from his report of 25 September 1862. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1860. His gravesite is on Findagrave, source also of his picture, from a photograph contributed by George Seitz.
He married Colonel Kennedy's sister Elizabeth McMillan Kennedy (1841-1917) on 1 January 1862 and they had a daughter Elise Elizabeth Kennedy Doby (1862-1947). Alfred's wife Elizabeth's mother was Sarah Ann Doby (1821-1893) - she and Alfred's father James Cureton Doby (1801-1850) were cousins. Alfred's daughter Elise married Beverly Means English (1863-1919) and their first child was Elizabeth Doby English (1887-1978).
More on the Web
His papers, including many wartime letters to his wife and others, are at the University of South Carolina - selected items and an inventory are online [PDF].
Birth
10/20/1840; Camden, SC
Death
05/06/1864; the Wilderness, VA; burial in Quaker Cemetery, Camden, 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 33791]
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, pp. 114-115 [AotW citation 33792]
3 US War Department, The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (OR), 128 vols., Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1880-1901, Series 1, Vol. 36, Part 1, p. 1062 [AotW citation 33793]