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Charles H. Vandiver
On May 1, 1840, Charles H. Vandiver was born in Hampshire county, Old Virginia, a son of Archibald and Rebecca Vandiver. He enlisted early in the C.S.A., and was made first lieutenant in Company F, 7th Virginia Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Ashby. This regiment was under General Rosser and known as the “Laurel Brigade.” Young Vandiver was a brave and gallant soldier, and while riding at the head of his company received a wound which incapacitated him for further active service. On August 7, 1864, Lieut. Col. Thomas Marshall, then in command of the regiment, wrote to Lieutenant Vandiver, assuring him of the high esteem in which he was held by his comrades, and expressing regret that the ties which bound him to them as a soldier had been so rudely snapped asunder. No doubt that letter was a perpetual inspiration to young Vandiver through life. Colonel Marshall (he soon afterwards fell in battle) caused his letter with these words: “But shall ‘the chance of war’ as by some it is called, cause us to meet no more in this life, I trust that in higher, holier, and happier world our acquaintance will be renewed, never to be broken.”
At the close of the war he studied law, and later became the editor of a paper at Keyser, W. Va. For ten years he was the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate of West Virginia. Major Vandiver, as he was known to most of his Missouri friends, moved to Vernon County, Mo., in 1880, and afterwards in 1883 to Lafayette county, where he continued to resided until the day of his death, September 7, 1911. In 1896 Major Vandiver was elected to the Missouri State Senate from the Seventeenth District, and was the author of the law making the Confederate Home of Missouri a State institution.
In early youth he became a member of the Presbyterian Church, and for many years prior to his death was an elder in the Church at Higginsville, MO.
During his career as a soldier, from 1861 until June 1864, he was engaged in a number of battles, and was thrice wounded and had seven horses shot under him. He was ever kind-hearted and suave in his manners. The granite of his nature was covered with flowers.
(Source: "Confederate Veteran", Pg 31, February 1912. Vol. XX, No. 2.Transcribed and contributed by Linda Rodriguez)
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