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Passed into life eternal at Exeter, Barry County, Mo., on July 8, 1920, after a lingering illness, James C. Crane, eldest son of the late Col. Joseph and Margaret E. Crane, of Charles Town, W. Va., in his seventy-fifth year. At the commencement of the War between the States James Crane, then sixteen years old, was a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute, which he left to join Company B, 12th Virginia Cavalry, commanded by Capt. R. W. Baylor, afterwards by his son, Capt. George Baylor, in Rosser's Brigade. In his notes made on the margin of a pocket Testament young Crane tells of the intense cold of the winter of 1864 on the raid to Beverly, Va. "My feet were terribly frozen," he writes, "while in camp at McDowell. Rosser, with three hundred and fifty men, captured over eight hundred Yankees of the 169th Ohio Infantry from Dayton. Our turkeys did not come up; rations scarce." In the battles of the Wilderness, May 4, 1864, he states: "Our brigade repulsed Wilson's whole division for three days, also fought Gregg's Division on the 6th, On that day I was terribly wounded and was taken to the hospital in Staunton, where for several months I was tenderly cared for by volunteer nurses of that city, among whom were Mrs. Matilda Trout, Mrs. Anna Forrest, Mrs. William Harman, and others. God bless these noble women!" This wound caused him much suffering through life. After recovering he reentered the service and fought to the end. After the surrender he went to St. Joseph, Mo., and in 1867, with two companions, he walked from St. Joseph, via Arkanasas, Alabama and Georgia, to his home in Charles Town (now W. Va.), Va. There was no braver private in the Confederate service than James Crane. He had been a consistent member of the Methodist Church, South, for twenty-five years. He was married to Miss Nellie Leith, of Loudon County, Va. Ten children were born to them, four of whom survive him-two sons and two daughters. He had lived in Missouri nearly forty years.
SOURCE: Confederate Veteran Magazine, October, 1920.
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