My maternal great grandfather was Dr. Joseph Blackwood Strachan. Dr. Strachans family were from Petersburg, VA. and the surrounding areas. Dr. Strachan attended VMI and later Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He was a surgeon at Petersburg during the war and at some point was assigned as surgeon for the 32nd North Carolina. He was parolled at Appomattox.

Sometime after 1882, the family moved to North Carolina and eventually settled in Princeton, NC where he practiced medicine until his death. Dr. Strachan died in 1909 while traveling back to Princeton after visiting Petersburg.

His third (first two died) wife and my great grandmother was Minnie Ruffin from Surry County, VA. She was born in 1840 and raised in her familys home (Spring Garden/Broomfield) near Cabin Point which at the time was a major shipping point for the surrounding tobacco plantations and farms. My grandmother (also Minnie) was born in Cabin Point. The well known agriculturalist and southern rights advocate Edmund Ruffin was a first cousin of my ggrandmothers father. She died in 1927.

There were two other children. Daughter Hattie and oldest child son Waverly. Hattie taught school in Rocky Mount until her death in the late 1940's. Waverly was employed by the Southern railroad and later was in the banking business in Salisbury. He was married to Henrietta McNeely of Salisbury. They had one daughter, the late Mildred Strachan Seaber. (See Josephus Hall House in Salisbury).

Dr. and Mrs. Strachan are buried in Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg.

I'm interested in anything anyone "stumbles over" regarding Dr. Strachan as it applies to the 32nd NC.

Thanks

Peter Thomas