From: Confederate Military History Extended Edition.  Edited by Gen. 
Clement A. Evans of Georgia.  Wilmington, NC. Broadfoot Publishing 
Company, 1987; pages 244-245.

ADDITIONAL SKETCHES ILLUSTRATING THE SERVICES OF OFFICERS AND 
PRIVATES AND PATRIOTIC CITIZENS OF WESTERN VIRGINIA.

*MAJOR JOHN WHITE MITCHELL*

Major John White Mitchell, a brilliant soldier of West Virginia,
was born at Wheeling, December 31, 1838. He was educated at Mount
Olive, New Jersey, and in the Episcopal academy at Alexandria,
Va., and studied law at Lexington, Va., gaining admission to
practice in 1860. At the same time he was a member of the
Shriver Grays, a local military company to which many of the 
young men of the best families in that region belonged. As first 
lieutenant of this organization he went into the Confederate service 
in the spring of 1861, and soon became distinguished for his 
gallantry among his comrades of the Twenty-seventh regiment and 
Stonewall brigade. He participated in the campaigns and battles of 
Jackson's corps until the death of that great leader at 
Chancellorsville, and continued in the fight until the end of the 
war, winning promotion to the rank of major. For some time he served 
upon the staff of Brig.-Gen. John Echols, who commanded the 
departments of southwest Virginia and the Trans-Allegheny during the 
latter part of the struggle. After the close of hostilities he served 
for a few years as deputy sheriff at Wheeling, and in 1883 became 
clerk of the circuit court, a position he held until his death July 
30, 1896. As a soldier he manifested the noblest qualities of the 
patriot volunteer and in civil life it was said of him that he had 
more personal friends than any other man of his county. He was 
descended from a pioneer family, his grandfather, Alexander Mitchell, 
having been distinguished in the early settlement of the upper Ohio 
valley and the contests with the Indians during that period.


(Linda Fluharty)