Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Andrew Jackson Shipman was born at Springvale, Fairfax Co., Va., on October 15, 1857, the eldest child of Priscilla Carroll and John James Shipman. From his mother he inherited his quiet simplicity and unselfishness, together with a kind of gentle aloofness which was manifested except to a few dear and tried friends. Certain of her physical traits were his also,—the very dark hair, the deepset eyes and the contour of brow and cheek. His father gave him that wide sympathy with all nationalities which became so characteristic of him in later life, his energetic wholeheartedness and his turn for practical affairs. The student in him came from his grandfather, Bennett Carroll. Andrew's earliest years fell during the upheaval of the Civil War. Very soon after his birth his parents settled at Villanova in Fairfax County. The estate lies on the crest of Pigeon Hill, one of the series of heights which climb in steps from the Potomac to the Blue Ridge, and it looks over slope and plain of cultivated fields and patches of woodland. Here in the spreading old house, built piecemeal around the original four-room dwelling, the young mother spent those troubled years with her father and little son. Only from time to time could the husband come home from the army. The homestead lay southwest from the chain of forts above the Potomac guarding Washington, and was not far from the Federal outposts. It was an everyday affair to see blue- coated soldiers riding by in squads, either just released from picket duty or straggling through the orchards, or even bringing their rations to the kitchen in the yard to be cooked by the indulgent old negro who presided there. The "little rebel zouave," as Andrew was called from his yellow-bound gray jacket made by his Southern mothe...