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Raleigh E. Colston (1825 - 1896)

Born in Paris on October 21, 1825, General Raleigh Colston was the son of Maria Theresa, Duchess of Valmy (ca. 1775-1845), the divorced wife of Napoleon's Marshal Georg Kellerman. He was adopted by the Duchess's husband, Virginia doctor Raleigh Edward Colston (1796-1881), and named after him. It is not known who his real father was. At age seventeen in 1842, he was sent to the United States with an American passport issued by the American minister General Lewis Cass, and to live with his uncle Edward Colston of Berkeley County, in western Virginia.

He then entered the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) on July 8, 1843, from which he graduated on July 4, 1846. Given his fluency in French, Colston was immediately employed at VMI as an assistant teacher of that language, and in 1859, he was elected professor of military strategy and history. Colston was with the contingent of VMI cadets assigned to guard duty at the execution of abolitionist John Brown in November 1859.

Colston married Louise Merriwether Bowyer of Thorn Hill plantation in Rockbridge County, Virginia, and had two daughters: Mary Frances and Louise Elezabeth.

Southern military colleges like VMI anticipated secession and prepared their understudies for an imminent war. Colston recommended that more practical subjects be included in the curriculum to ready the Corps of Cadets for the future, and by January 1860, students were familiar with small arms and artillery tactics.

In April 1861, the Governor ordered Colston to march his Corps of Cadets to Richmond in order to instruct new recruits in the rudiments of drill and military procedure,  In May, he was commissioned Colonel of the 16th Virginia Infantry that was then stationed in Norfolk. Colston commanded Virginians near Newport News in 1862, when the Monitor-Virginia ironclad battle took place.  He later wrote his observations for Century Magazine. On December 24, 1861, Colston was promoted to brigadier-general, and he later fought at this rank in engagements at Yorktown, Williamsburg and Seven Pines.

In April 1863, he was transferred to Stonewall Jackson’s corps and assigned a brigade in Trimble’s Division.  He distinguished himself as a brigade commander at the battle of Chancellorsville. In the Spring of 1864, Colston had been ordered to Petersburg to serve under General Beauregard and to stymie the enemy’s progress while Lee reinforced Beauregard’s lines.  In August of that year, Colston was placed in command of Lynchburg’s defenses. He remained there until Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

After the war, General Colston supported himself by delivering lectures regarding Stonewall Jackson.  He visited many cities, including Raleigh, Baltimore, and Richmond. After establishing a military school in Hillsborough, North Carolina, he was summoned to do the same in Wilmington.   He started the Cape Fear Military Academy on October 12, 1868.

In 1873, General Colston accepted an invitation from the Khedive of Egypt to assume a general staff position with the equivalent rank of colonel.  In his biographical sketch of Colston, R.B. Lewis relates that the North Carolinian "surveyed and mapped the deserts of the Kordofan region along the Sudanese Nile, dug wells and collected specimens."  His first expedition took place from October 1873 to May 1874 and the second from 1874 to 1876. In the desert outside of El Obeid, he was stricken with a paralysis and was an invalid for nearly a year. Though he recovered from this illness, he became "permanently semiparalyzed" in 1886. His valuable services in these expeditions were appreciated by the Egyptian government.  The Khedive obtained for him from the Sultan, the firman and decoration of “Knight Commander of the Turkish Imperial Order of the Osmanieh,” a distinction which is never granted except for eminent and meritorious public services.”

After England took control of the country and the Khedive was forced to reduce his military strength and not employ any American officers, General Colston returned to the United States in 1879.  Although physically ill, he brought back a considerable amount of money in gold in payment for his services, but friends in Wall Street lost it all while undertaking plans to build Colston a fortune. Though severely crippled by service injuries and once again reduced to poverty, he delivered lectures and wrote magazine articles on his wartime and Egyptian exploits, and “on subjects with which his great learning and large experience had made him familiar.” In the mid-1880s, he wrote "The Rescue of Chinese Gordon" and "The Land of the False Prophet" for Century's Magazine.

In 1882, General Colston was offered the professorship of natural history, mechanics and astronomy at his alma mater, VMI. Though tempted by the offer of financial stability and the familiar surroundings of his youth, he declined, for he doubted his abilities to teach astronomy. Through his military connections, he found appointment as a clerk in the Surgeon General’s library division in the War Department in August 1882. He held this position until May 1894, when he was released due to his declining health and near-paralysis.

He spent the last two years of his life in the Richmond Confederate Soldiers Home among his veteran comrades.

General Raleigh E. Colston died on July 29, 1896, and was buried with military honors in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery among many other American soldiers and statesmen.