William Nelson Pendleton

Pendleton was born in Richmond in 1809 and graduated fifth in his class from West Point in 1830. He served briefly as an artillery officer before resigning his commission, taking holy orders in the Episcopal Church, and beginning a teaching career. In 1839 Bishop William Meade Person William Meade b. 1789 · d. 1862 Second Bishop of Virginia (consecrated 1841; assistant bishop 1829–1841) and the founder of Episcopal High School in Alexandria in 1839 — the first high school in Virginia. A … called him to Alexandria as the first principal of 1200 North Quaker Lane Place 1200 North Quaker Lane The first high school in Virginia, founded 1839 by Bishop William Meade of the Episcopal Diocese on a 100-acre campus west of Old Town. First principal William Nelson Pendleton … — the diocese’s just-opened school for boys. Pendleton served five years before moving to a parish in Lexington, Virginia, where he became rector of Grace (later Grace–R.E. Lee Memorial) Church.

Lee’s chief of artillery

Pendleton entered Confederate service in 1861 and was promoted to brigadier general the following year. Assigned by Robert E. Lee as chief of artillery for the Army of Northern Virginia, he served in that role from June 1862 to the surrender at Appomattox Court House in April 1865 — a tenure that included Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. Historians have long debated his effectiveness in command; modern scholarship generally rates him as competent but not distinguished, his long-running difficulties with subordinates including Edward Porter Alexander a recurring administrative problem.

His artillery duties brought him back into close contact with students and former masters of his old Episcopal High School — many of whom had volunteered, fought, and died under him. The bonds with Lee in particular were both military and personal: when Lee accepted the presidency of Washington College (now Washington & Lee) after the war, Pendleton resumed the rectorate at Grace Church next door, serving Lee’s family and overseeing his 1870 funeral.

Pendleton died in Lexington in 1883 and is buried in the family plot at Lexington’s Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery (now renamed). The Episcopal High School war memorial in the chapel narthex bears his name as the school’s first principal.