David Gregg McIntosh was born on March 16, 1836, in Society Hill, South Carolina. His parents were James H. McIntosh and Martha Gregg McIntosh. David was the second child and oldest son of eight children. He attended St. David’s Academy and granduated in 1855 from South Carolina College at Columbia.

David Gregg McIntosh

David Gregg McIntosh

After graduation McIntosh studied law and was admitted to the bar. When the war broke out he was practicing law and was a member of the local militia.

Civil War Career

joined Company D of the the 1st South Carolina Infantry and became its captain. The company saw its first action in a skirmish at Vienna, Virginia, about a month before Manassas (Bull Run).

On December 20, 1861 McIntosh’s Company D was converted into an artillery battery, becoming the Pee Dee Light Artillery. McIntosh commanded his battery in the fighting from the Seven Days until Fredericksburg at the end of 1862. His younger brother Edward served as a lieutenant in the battery.

On March 2, 1863 McIntosh was promoted to major and given command of a battalion of artillery attached to the Reserve Artillery of the Second Corps. He commanded the battalion at Chancellorsville. When the Third Corps was created in June of 1863 McIntosh’s Battalion was assigned to the Third Corps Reserve Artillery, where it would serve until the end of the war.

McIntosh commanded his battalion at Gettysburg (see battalion monument at Gettysburg), Bristoe and Mine Run. He was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in February of 1864, and continued to lead his men in the battles of the Overland Campaign and the Petersburg Siege.

McIntosh was lightly wounded in the Battle of the Crater in July of 1864 and was again wounded at the battle of Weldon Railroad in August. He would continue with the army until just before Appomattox. He was not present at the surrender.

After the War

On November 8, 1865 David married Virginia Pegram. She was the sister to three Confederate officers, including legendary artillery commander William Pegram, who had commanded the other artillery battalion in the Third Corps Artillery Reserve until his death just before Appomattox.

David and Virginia would have two children, a son, David, Jr. and a daughter, who became Mrs. W. Waller Morton.

McIntosh spent two years after the war in South Carolina, where he returned to the practice of law. U.S. Military authorities appointed him to a commission that heard and judged disputes between freedmen and their emplyers. He accepted the sensitive and probably thankless position “out of a sense of patriotism.”

In 1868 McIntosh moved to Towson, Maryland. In 1879 he was elected State’s Attorney for Baltimore County, and went on to become the President of the State Board of Law Examiners and the Maryland Bar Association.

A member of the Episcopal Church, he served as a vestryman at Trinity Church in Towson. He also authored a pamphlet on the Battle of Chancellorsville.

David McIntosh died on October 16, 1916 in Towson, Maryland. He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.