In 1861 John Pelham became a 1st Lieutenant in
J.E.B. Stuart's Horse Artillery. His commission as Captain,
in the Provisional Army of the State of Virginia, was signed
by Governor Letcher on May 1, 1862. His rank
starting on March 23, 1862, and he became a Major in the
middle of August, 1962.
General Robert E. Lee called him, "The Gallant Pelham", after his artillery action at Fredericksburg. At the beginning of the battle of Kelly's Ford, on March 17, 1863, Major John Pelham was hit by an exploding shell. He was brought to the Shackleford House in Culpepper, where doctors feverishly worked on him, but his skull had been too severely injured. He lay unconscious until shortly after midnight, when he lost the battle for life. When he died on March 18, 1863, at the young age of 25, the South lost a great man.
His body lay in state in Richmond's Capitol for three days; he was buried in the Jacksonville Cemetery, in Jacksonville, Alabama, on March 31, 1863. A statue of Major John Pelham now stands over his grave. A tribute to just one of the many Gallant men who wore the gray and served the Confederacy with honor.
There is a town and school, in Alabama, named Pelham.