Walton, David Harrison

Life Span
to
Dickinson Connection
Class of 1854
    Full name
    David Harrison Walton
    Place of Birth
    Burial Place
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    South
    Origins
    Slave State
    Education
    Dickinson (Carlisle College)
    Occupation
    Military
    Attorney or Judge
    Military
    Confederate Army

    David Harrison Walton (Dickinson Chronicles)

    Scholarship
    David Harrison Walton was born on October 21, 1830 in Shenandoah County, Virginia, near the town of Woodstock. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and graduated with his class in the early summer of 1854. He was a superior student and a member of the Union Philosophical Society. Following his undergraduate years, he studied law in Lexington, Virginia.

    He practiced law, and when the Civil War broke out he helped raise a company in his home county that became Company K of the 33rd Virginia Infantry, nicknamed the "Shenandoah Sharpshooters," and was commissioned as its first commander. The unit became a part of the Stonewall Brigade that fought famously at the first Battle of Bull Run (Manassas). In June 1862, with the regiment and brigade suffering some discipline and leadership problems, Walton was reduced to the ranks of the 33rd. He fought as an enlisted man and was wounded at the second encounter at Bull Run (Manassas) in August 1862 and was soon restored to the rank of lieutenant before the unit was engaged at Antietam (Sharpsburg) in September 1862. He continued with the 33rd and was wounded in action at Cedar Creek in October 1864.

    Following the war, he returned to law practice in Woodstock. David Harrison Walton died in his hometown on July 7, 1876 and was buried in the Massanutten Cemetery in Woodstock. He was forty-five years old.
    John Osborne and James W. Gerencser, eds., “David Harrison Walton,” Dickinson Chronicles, http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/encyclo/w/ed_waltonDH.htm.
    How to Cite This Page: "Walton, David Harrison," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/6799.