 He came from a good heritage, a heritage of which he never boasted, but which he exemplified by a life of high purpose and eminent usefulness.His boyhood fell during the American Civil War.His father, a former soldier, lawyer, and a judge entered him as a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington in the fall of 1864, where he remained until the evacuation of Richmond, serving as occasion required with the corps of that famous institute in defense of the capital of his State.