BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



Andrew Jackson Shipman was born at Springvale, Fair- 

 fax Co., y^' on October 15, 1857, the eldest child of Priscilla 

 Carroll and John James Shipman. From his mother he in- 

 herited his quiet simplicity and unselfishness, together with a 

 kind of gentle aloofness which was manifested except to a 

 few dear and tried friends. Certain of her physical traits were 

 his also,— the very dark hair, the deepset eyes and the contour 

 of brow and cheek. His father gave him that wide sympathy 

 with all nationalities which became so characteristic of him 

 in later life, his energetic wholeheartedness and his turn for 

 practical affairs. The student in him came from his grand- 

 father, Bennett Carroll. 



Andrew's earliest years fell during the upheaval of the 

 Civil War. Very soon after his birth his parents settled at 

 Villanova in Fairfax County. The estate lies on the crest of 

 Pigeon Hill, one of the series of heights which climb in steps 

 from the Potomac to the Blue Ridge, and it looks over slope 

 and plain of cultivated fields and patches of woodland. Here 

 in the spreading old house, built piecemeal around the original 

 four-room dwelling, the young mother spent those troubled 

 years with her father and little son. Only from time to time 

 could the husband come home from the army. 



The homestead lay southwest from the chain of forts above 

 the Potomac guarding Washington, and was not far from 

 the Federal outposts. It was an everyday affair to see blue- 

 coated soldiers riding by in squads, either just released from 

 picket duty or straggling through the orchards, or even bring- 

 ing their rations to the kitchen in the yard to be cooked by 

 the indulgent old negro who presided there. 



The "little rebel zouave," as Andrew was called from his 

 yellow-bound gray jacket made by his Southern mother, was 

 a pet of the Federal soldiers, who sometimes swung him to 

 the front of the cavalry saddle and carried him away for 

 long rides. One day he was brought back with a silver 

 cavalry badge pinned to his gray rebel jacket — a silver circle 

 with a silver cavalryman on his horse inside the circle, and 



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