From: Confederate Military History Extended Edition.  Edited by Gen. 
Clement A. Evans of Georgia.  Wilmington, NC. Broadfoot Publishing 
Company, 1987; page 271.

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

*RANDOLPH STALNAKER*

Randolph Stalnaker, conspicuous in the industrial activity of
Wheeling, W. Va., as well as in the official and political
affairs of his State, was born at Lewisburg, Va., June 8, 1847,
and was educated at the academies at Lewisburg and Union, 
Monroe county. While yet in school he felt it his duty to enlist in 
the Confederate army, but was rejected on account of his youth. Early 
in 1863 he volunteered a second time, being in his sixteenth year, 
and was accepted and assigned to the staff of Brig.-Gen. A. W. 
Reynolds, of Virginia, who commanded a brigade in the army of 
Tennessee. He participated in the defense of Vicksburg during the 
siege and twenty-seven days' bombardment by Grant's army, and after 
the capitulation returned to Virginia and was appointed adjutant of 
Col. D. S. Hounshell's battalion of cavalry. In this capacity he 
served until the close of the war, actively engaged in many important 
campaigns and battles, among them the affairs at Dry Creek and 
Snicker's Gap, Va.; the second and third days of the great contest at 
Gettysburg, Pa.; the fight with Wallace at the Monocacy, Md., and the 
famous battle of Winchester, September 19, 1864, between the armies 
of Early and Sheridan. He was paroled in May, 1865, at Lewisburg, W. 
Va., and then engaged in business there. When Governor Matthews was 
inaugurated as governor at Wheeling, in March, 1877, Major Stalnaker 
was appointed private secretary to the governor, a duty he performed 
until March, 1881, when he was installed as secretary of state of 
West Virginia, an office to which he had been elected in the 
preceding fall. On retiring from this office in 1885, he engaged in 
manufacturing at Wheeling, and subsequently was officially connected 
with the West Virginia china company. He is now interested in real 
estate and insurance, is connected with the legal department of the 
Baltimore & Ohio railroad, and is committeeman for his State of the 
National Democratic party.


(Linda Fluharty)