Clarke Rifles (Co. I, 2nd Virginia Infantry)

The Clarke County Historical Association's Proceedings (1958), reprinting a 1948 column by Everard Kidder Meade, say the Berryville company was organized in October 1859 as the Clarke Guards, helped guard the Charles Town prison until John Brown and his men were executed, and was reorganized as the Clarke Rifles, which served the four years of the war in the Stonewall Brigade as Co. I, 2nd Virginia Infantry.

Meade's column says that on picket near Port Republic on Sunday morning, June 8, 1862, the company's Capt. S. J. C. Moore, warned by Henry Kerfoot of the Clarke Cavalry that Union cavalry was coming, sent Kerfoot on to warn Jackson and placed Co. I so that it held the enemy until help came.

Meade's column lists the Clarke Rifles' commanders as Capt. S. C. Bowen, who resigned, Capt. S. J. C. Moore, "twice wounded and twice promoted," and Capt. J. H. O'Bannon; a comrade's letter of 1905 gives the founder as Capt. S. H. Bowen.

A death notice the Clarke Courier reprinted in July 1905 from the Clarksburg News says John A. Blake, born in Berryville 63 years before, served in the Confederate army, and that before the war "he was one of the party that captured John Brown," saw Brown hanged at Charles Town and was one of the few who guarded his coffin; he was buried at Green Hill.

A comrade's letter in the Clarke Courier of August 23, 1905, signed "G.", written when two of the company had died "within the last few days," says Jas. H. O'Bannon came to Berryville in 1859 or 1860 to work on the Clarke Journal, joined the Clarke Rifles, went with the company to Harpers Ferry on April 17, 1861, and was at Manassas and every engagement after, "never having been wounded or taken prisoner."

The same letter says O'Bannon was made lieutenant and, when Capt. S. J. C. Moore was promoted, captain of the company, and that after the war he published the Clarke Journal with D. Holmes McGuire.

The same letter says Decatur J. Shepherd was living in Indiana when the war opened, made his way "with much difficulty" through Kentucky and Tennessee to his native county to enlist in the Clarke Rifles, and was wounded at Kernstown and permanently disabled at Cedar Run.

The letter, dated August 21, 1905 and signed "G.", ends: "To us, 'Kate' Shepherd and 'Jim' O'Bannon can never die while memory lasts."

A tribute in the Clarke Courier of February 12, 1920, signed "B." of the J. E. B. Stuart Camp, says John R. Shipe, who died on January 26, 1920, had been a boatman on the Shenandoah before he volunteered in Co. I, 2nd Virginia, was at the Bloody Angle, got away with John Grubbs when Johnston's Division was captured, and was with Gordon in the last charge at Petersburg.

The 1920 tribute says Shipe and Abner Jones "were the only ones of Co. I" at Lee's surrender; Meade's 1948 column says "Four survivors surrendered at Appomattox."

The 1920 tribute says that after the war Shipe made his living as a laborer and then as a tollgate keeper until his health gave way.

The Clarke Courier of February 12, 1920 reported the death of G. William "Uncle Bill" Kelly, born in Clarke near Paris, once the owner of land now part of the Mt. Weather estate, who lived in a cottage on the Bluemont pike and would wave to his friends from the gate; it called him a member of Co. I, Stonewall Brigade, "the second of that famous command to pass over" in a few weeks, and said Thomas D. Gold had called him a "good one."