Notes on Kite Letter

Notes on M. V. B. Kite, 33rd VA, on the Death of His Brother, 10th VA, by contributor Robert H. Moore, II:

By far, First Manassas (July 21, 1861) was the single worst day in the history of military casualties for Page County; the county losing more killed and wounded in that single day than any other before, during, or after the Civil War. Among those who fell was John William Kite (born ca. 1838), a son of David B. and Marie Kauffman Kite. John W. Kite enlisted in June 1861 with Capt. William T. Young’s Page Volunteers, a company that subsequently became Co. K of the Tenth Virginia Infantry. Two of John’s other brothers, Alfred Melton Kite and Martin Van Buren Kite enlisted in Rev. Rippetoe’s Page Grays (later Co. H, Thirty-third Virginia Infantry). The letter describes part of the events of the battle, as described by Martin to his sister Eliza (later the wife of Noah Rowe). Incidentally, since the two companies were not immediately fighting alongside each other during the battle, it can be understood why information conveyed to Martin on the battlefield was not immediate or necessarily accurate. The account was originally published in the 1920s in the “Richmond Missourian.”

Martin Van Buren Kite’s service was short-lived as well. Sent home sick in October 1861, by January 1862, he was detailed as a nurse at a Lynchburg hospital and there remained for most of the rest of his service. Alfred M. Kite also survived the war.