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Capt. R. P. Howell, Confederate soldier and lifelong resident of Wayne County, N. C., died at Goldsboro on May 8, 1916. He was born January 18, 1840, near Goldsboro, and there he spent his boyhood and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1856 to 1859. When the War between the States broke out, he enlisted as a private in the Goldsboro Rifles and was sent with the company to garrison Fort Macon, at Beaufort Harbor, N. C. In the spring of 1862 the company (Company A, 27th North Carolina, under Col. John R. Cooke) was sent to Virginia to form a part of the force that the authorities were hurriedly assembling to oppose McClellan's advance up the Peninsula. These forces joined just after the battle of Seven Pines and were assigned to the 1st Reserve Corps under General Huger, but did not participate in the Seven Day's fighting.

In August, 1862, Col. Joel R. Griffin raised a cavalry regiment, the 62d Georgia, recruited from Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. The place of captain and assistant quartermaster was given to "Phil" Howell. The regiment was first in the command of Gen. Beverly H. Robertson and afterwards under Gen. Roger A. Pryor. Until the summer of 1864 this command operated independently, participating in the recapture of Plymouth. The regiment was then sent to Petersburg as a part of Deering's Brigade, W. H. F. Lee's division, Hampton's Corps. At his own request Captain Howell was transferred to the forage bureau in the spring of 1865 and assigned to North Carolina, where he was when Lee surrendered.

In the fall of 1865 Captain Howell went to Mississippi and tried farming. In 1866 he married Gabriella K. Douglass, a daughter of Rev. J. E. Douglass, the ceremony taking place at Marshall Institute. In 1868 he went back to Goldsboro and there engaged in farming and banking, His wife died in 1914, and two years later, at the age of seventy-six years, he followed her and was laid to rest on Memorial Day, the day so sacred to him, with its precious memories. He left a family of eight sons and daughters, two being officers in the United States army.