From: Confederate Military History Extended Edition.  Edited by Gen. 
Clement A. Evans of Georgia.  Wilmington, NC. Broadfoot Publishing 
Company, 1987; pages 263-264.

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

*CAPTAIN JOHN V. L. RODGERS*

Captain John V. L. Rodgers, a well-known business man of
Wheeling, W. Va., who served in various important capacities
in the Confederate army, was born in Brooke county, in the
"Panhandle," in the year 1836. He was reared and educated in
his native county until 1855, when he went west and resided in
Kansas until the outbreak of the war. Then, desiring to serve
in defense of his State, he made his way to Richmond, and there 
entered the Confederate service in September, 1861, in the department 
of the quartermaster-general. Soon afterward, in the month of 
November, he was ordered to Salisbury, N. C., to superintend the 
erection of a military prison, at which he was engaged until May, 
1862, when, at the organization of the Forty-second North Carolina 
regiment of infantry, he was appointed captain and commissary of that 
command. He served with the regiment in the field until June, 1864, 
when he was detailed for duty at Greensboro, N. C., as assistant 
inspector of field transportation, the capacity in which he served 
during the remainder of the struggle and until he was surrendered 
with the army of Gen. J. E. Johnston. During his service he actively 
participated in a considerable number of engagements, was in the 
battle of Seven Pines, receiving a severe wound in the right hip 
which disabled him for several months, and took part in the 
engagements at Drewry's bluff, Hamilton, Williamston, New Bern, N. 
C., and at Washington, Wilmington, and Smithfield in the same State.  
In a fight near Tarboro, N. C., he was slightly wounded in the ankle. 
In 1862, at Lynchburg, Va., he had charge for some time of 5,000 
Federal prisoners, captured by Stonewall Jackson from Banks', 
Shields' and Fremont's divisions, and was in charge later of another 
body of about 7,000 at Danville. After the war he remained at 
Greensboro, N. C., until October 1, 1865, when he returned to 
Wheeling, his home since that date.  He is at present quite 
successfully engaged in the insurance business.


(Linda Fluharty)