Alexander Swift Pendleton

Rank history:
Lt., July 19, 1861;
Aide-de-Camp (A D C), Feb. 1862;
Assistant Adjutant-General (AAG), April 19, 1862;
Capt.and AAG., June 18, 1862;
Major, Dec. 4, 1862

Alexander (Sandie) Swift Pendleton was born near Alexandria, Virginia on September 28, 1840. He was the only son of William Nelson Pendleton . The Pendleton family moved to Lexington, Virginia in October 1853, where William became rector at Grace Episcopal Church. Sandie Pendleton graduated from Washington College (now Washington & Lee University) in 1857, and subsequently enrolled at the University of Virginia, where he was pursuing a Master of Arts degree when the Civil War began in April 1861. He received a commission as 2nd Lieutenant in Provisional Army of Virginia and reported to Harper's Ferry on June 14, 1861. Within weeks, he was asked by General Stonewall Jackson to join his staff as an ordnance officer --- Jackson had known Pendleton from their days together in Lexington, where Jackson was a Professor at the Virginia Military Institute. Pendleton subsequently served as Jackson's Assistant Adjutant General (Second Corps), and the relationship between Pendleton and Jackson was a close one-- it was said that Jackson "loved him like a son."

Capt Pendleton was AAG on Gen Jackson's staff. At one point during the battle, he describes the scene - "Such a storm of balls I never conceived it possible for men to live through. Shot and shell shrieking and crashing, canister and bullets whistling and hissing most fiend-like through the air until you could almost see them. In that mile's ride I never expected to come back alive." {quoted on the NPS Antietam site)

He served on General "Stonewall" Jackson's staff until the Generals death at Chancellorsville in May 1863, and subsequently as adjutant-general to General Jubal A. Early and General Richard S. Ewell. He was killed at Fisher's Hill, Virginia, 22 September, 1864.

The authoritive biography is - Bean, W. G. Stonewall's Man: Sandie Pendleton, University of North Carolina Press, 1959.

See a brief bio and collection of papers at VMI - the source of the picture and much of the text above, and a memorial site (with a picture of Pendleton's gravesite) on the Stonewall Jackson Cemetery in Lexington.

9/28/1840; Alexandria, VA

9/22/1864; Fisher's Hill, VA; burial in Stonewall Jackson Cemetery, Lexington, VA