Robert A . Hardaway Robert A . Hardaway ( February 2 , 1829 – April 27 , 1899 ) was an artillery officer in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War . Pre - War . Robert Archelaus Hardaway was a native of Georgia – born there Feb . 2 , 1829 ; but he was raised in Alabama . His parents were Robert Stanfield Hardaway and his second wife , Martha Bibb Jarratt . Hardaway was educated at St . Joseph ' s College ( Alabama ) , and Emory College , later Emory University , in Georgia . Hardaway served with the United States Army during the Mexican War , but the war ended before he could see combat . After that war , he was the superintendent of the Mobile and Girard Railroad . He resided in Macon County , Alabama before the outbreak of war . Hardaway purchased his father ’ s plantation in 1857 , becoming owner of its 60 slaves . On June 27 of the same year , he married Rebecca Elizabeth Hurt . They had three sons . Civil War . Hardway began the war as commander of an Alabama battery . It was recruited mostly in three counties , Macon , Russell and Tallapoosa . The battery was sent East , where it was mustered into the Confederate service on June 21 , 1861 . The battery was posted at Manassas , Virginia until March , 1862 . Hardaway ’ s command moved to the Virginia Peninsula , where it fought at the Battle of Seven Pines in the division of Maj . Gen . D . H . Hill . The battery took part in the Seven Days Battles . Hill ’ s division remained near Richmond , Virginia until it departed to participate in the Maryland Campaign . Hardaway was commended by Confederate commanders for the conduct of his battery in the campaign . Later in the year , serving near Fredericksburg , Virginia , Hardaway ’ s gunners , using a Whitworth gun ( designed by Joseph Whitworth , drove federal gunboats away from Port Royal , Virginia on December 4 , 1862 . Both Hill and Stonewall Jackson commended Hardaway for his actions at the Battle of Fredricksburg . Shortly afterward , he was assigned command of an artillery battalion , and Captain William B . Hurt took command of the battery . Apparently Hardaway was promoted to the rank of major on December 2 , 1862 , And to lieutenant colonel on Feb . 27 , 1864 . Col . Stapleton Crutchfield , Jackson ’ s chief of artillery , objected to the promotion , claiming that Hardaway was a fine gunner but hard on both men and horses . Nonetheless , the promotion of Hardaway went through . As a major , Hardaway became second in command of Lt . Col . John J . Garnett ’ s artillery battalion , attached to the division of Maj . Gen . Robert H . Anderson . The division fought at the Battle of Chancellorsville directly under the command of General Robert E . Lee . General Lee had Hardaway assemble a group of rifled guns to bombard the federal camps on morning of May 4 , 1863 . Hardaway became ill with dysentery , missing the Gettysburg Campaign . He returned to active duty in time for the Mine Run Campaign in the fall of 1863 . In the Battle of the Wilderness , Hardaway commanded his battalion in the corps of Lt . Gen . Richard S . Ewell in the portion of the artillery contingent led by Col . J . Thompson Brown . The battalion continued in that corps throughout the Overland Campaign . Hardaway ’ s guns were in the second line of Ewell ’ s corps at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House , but some of them were moved up to the line of a gorge to contain the federal breakthrough on May 11 . When the corps , led by Jubal Early left to defend Lynchburg , Virginia , Hardaway ’ s battalion remained behind . It was assigned to the defenses of Richmond , Virginia , reporting to Brig . Gen . Edward Porter Alexander . The battalion played a role in the Battle of Chaffin ' s Farm and spent much of late 1864 assigned to the defenses of Chaffin ' s Bluff . When the corps formerly led by Ewell and Early returned to the defenses of Petersburg , Virginia with Maj . Gen . John B . Gordon as its commander , Hardaway ’ s battalion returned to that corps . Hardaway ’ s gunners served under Gordon in the Appomattox Campaign , firing one of the last shots before Lee ’ s surrender . Hardaway was paroled on May 10 , 1865 . Post war . After the war , returned to his plantation in Georgia . Then he went into railroad work , including as general manager of the East Alabama Railroad , 1869 - 1872 . Hardway was an engineering professor at Auburn University from 1873 to 1881 , and at the University of Alabama from 1882 to 1897 . In between , he was an engineer for the Central Railroad in Mexico in 1881 and 1882 . Hardaway died on April 27 , 1899 in Columbus , Georgia . Hardaway ’ s papers are at the University of North Carolina libraries as Collection Number 03006 . Hardaway Hall , University of Alabama , which was completed in 1936 , was named for Professor Robert A . Hardaway .