DEARING, James, soldier, born in Campbell County, Virginia, 25 April 1840; died in Lynchburg in April 1865. He was a great-grandson of Colonel Charles Lynch, of Revolutionary fame, who gave his name to the summary method of administering justice now known as "Lynch law," through his rough and ready way of treating the Tories. He was graduated at Hanover, Virginia, academy, and was appointed a cadet in the U. S. military academy, but resigned in 1861, to join the Confederate army when Virginia passed the ordinance of secession. He was successively lieutenant of the Washington artillery of New Orleans, captain of Latham's battery, major and commander of Denny's artillery battalion, and colonel of a cavalry regiment from North Carolina, and was promoted to the rank of brigadier general for gallantry at the battle of Plymouth. He participated in the principal engagements between the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac. On the retreat of the Confederate forces from Petersburg to Appomattox Court House, he was mortally wounded near Farmville in a singular encounter with Brigadier General Theodore Read, of the National army. The two generals met, on 5 April at the head of their forces, on opposite sides of the Appomattox, at High Bridge, and a duel with pistols ensued. General Read was shot dead, but General Dearing lingered until a few days after the surrender of Lee, when he died in the old City hotel at Lynchburg, Virginia.