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B. D. Fry
(1822 - 1891)
Home State: Alabama
Education: VMI, USMA, Class of 1847;Class Rank: 38
Command Billet: Commanding Regiment
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 13th Alabama Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
He entered VMI on 20 July 1840 as a member of the Class of 1843, but resigned on 2 June 1841. He then entered West Point in 1842, but left before graduating because of an academic deficiency in mathematics. He practiced law, then was a First Lieutenant, US Army, during the Mexican War (1847-48). He went West, practicing law in California (1849-55) and was a militia Captain there (with then-Captain Montgomery Corse). He took part in Walker's expedition to Nicaragua (1857), and returned to California where he remained until 1859, when he moved to Tallassee, AL to manage a cotton mill owned by his wife's family.
He was commissioned Colonel of the 13th Alabama Infantry on 19 July 1861. He was wounded at Seven Pines, VA about 1 June 1862.
On the Campaign
He was in command of his regiment on the campaign and was wounded in the arm in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862 - relieved there by Lieutenant Colonel Betts.
The rest of the War
In 1863 he was also wounded at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, where he was captured. He was back on duty after a special exchange was arranged in early June 1864. While a prisoner he had been promoted to the rank of Brigadier General to date from 24 May 1864. He then served in the Carolinas and commanded the military district in Augusta, Georgia until end of war.
After the War
He went to Cuba but returned to Alabama in 1868. In 1870 he was a prosperous accountant in the cotton business at Tallassee in Elmore County, AL and in 1880 was Superintendent of Public Schools in Montgomery, AL. He moved to Richmond, VA in 1881 and was president of a cotton mill there.
References & notes
His basic information from a bio in the VMI Archives and Warner,1 source also of his picture. Service details from his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census of 1870 & 1880. His gravesite is on Findagrave.
He married Martha Augusta Micou (1823-1878) in July 1853 in San Francisco, CA.
Birth
6/24/1822; Kanawha County, VA
Death
1/21/1891; Richmond, VA; burial in Oakwood Cemetery, Montgomery, AL
1 Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Gray, Lives of the Confederate Commanders, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1959, pp. 95, 96 [AotW citation 32520]
2 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 32521]