Corporal Thomas Benjamin Traynham was a member of the Black Walnut Dragoons, Company C, 3rd Virginia Cavalry. During his service as a courier for General Robert E. Lee, tradition holds that Traynham was detailed to deliver an important message to General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. The incident probably took place in May 1863, during the Chancellorsville campaign. Traynham lost a leg due to wounds sustained in 1864 during the Spotsylvania campaign. He died in Halifax County, Virginia, in 1910.
This poem appears in The 3rd Virginia Cavalry, written by Thomas P. Nanzig in 1989 as part of the Virginia Regimental Histories Series. Thanks to Jeffrey W. Brosnan, a descendant of Tom Traynham's, for contributing this poem.
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Last modified 18-April-2001