Richard Channing Price was born around 1842 in Virginia to Thomas and Christina Price. His father was a merchant who owned $100,000 of real estate and $50,000 of personal property by 1860. He grew up and attended school in Richmond, Virginia.

 

He enlisted in the Confederate army on July 22, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company D of the 1^st Virginia Artillery. According to his service records, he was 5 feet, 8 inches tall, with black hair and black eyes. He was promoted to 2^nd lieutenant in the summer of 1862, and he served on General James “Jeb” Stuart’s staff. He was promoted to major in the spring of 1863, and he died in the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 1, 1863.

 

As one comrade noted, a “fragment of a shell penetrated his leg below the knee, severed the artery, and caused his death a few hours afterwards from loss of blood.” The writer eulogized Price as “brave, high-souled and generous to a fault—respected for his intelligence, and beloved for his social traitors.”

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