ELZEY, Arnold Jones was born on December 18, 1816 in Somerset County, Maryland, United States, United States. His father, Colonel Arnold Elzey Jones, represented Somerset County in the state House, and his mother, Anne Wilson (Jackson), was from a wealthy Maryland family.
Graduated from the United States Military Academy, 1837.
In 1837, he graduated thirty-third in a class of fifty from the U.S. Military Academy, at which time he dropped his patronymic for his middle name. He had one son by his 1845 marriage to Ellen Irwin. Elzey, a career military officer, served in the artillery during the Seminole War and fired the first gun of the Mexican War, where he was breveted twice.
In 1860, he was a captain of artillery in command of the U.S. arsenal at Augusta, Georgia. In April 1861, he resigned his army commission and entered the Confederate Army as a lieutenant colonel. After helping to turn the tide of the battle at First Manassas, he was promoted on the field by President Davis himself on July 21, 1861.
In 1862, he served with Thomas J. Jackson in the Valley campaign and during the Seven Days. He was wounded at the battle of Port Republic in June 1862 and saw no further field service after a second wound at Cold Harbor in June 1864. He was promoted to major general on December 4, 1862, and commanded the Department of Richmond until the fall of 1864, when he joined the Army of Tennessee as Hood’s chief of artillery.
He surrendered at the war’s end and was paroled in Washington, Georgia, in May 1865. After the war, he returned to a small farm in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.
Married Ellen Irwin, 1845, 1 son.
