Charles McCally grew up in Clarksburg, Virginia (present-day West Virginia). He worked as an engineer, and he helped build the North Western Virginia Railroad in the 1850s. He also worked in the Kansas Territory, where he reportedly “did important duty” under surveyor general John Calhoun in the mid-1850s. By the early 1860s, he was probably living in Beaumont, Texas. A friend later observed that he was “known in Texas as an Engineer of rare attainments and great experience.”

 

He enlisted in the Confederate army on September 26, 1861, and he mustered in as a private in Company F of the 5^th Texas Infantry. The regiment took part in the Battle of Seven Pines, the Second Battle of Manassas, the Battle of Antietam, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the Battle of Chickamauga. He was wounded at Antietam on September 17, 1862, but he eventually recovered and rejoined the regiment.

 

He received a promotion to corporal on January 1, 1862, and to sergeant on November 1, 1862. By February 1864, he was serving as a clerk. In the spring of 1864, he was promoted to 2^nd lieutenant in the Confederate Engineer Corps.

 

He returned to Texas after the war. He died in Kansas City, Kansas, on July 4, 1868. According to a Texas writer, he “foolishly gave vent, under the influence of liquor, to his Southern sentiments.” The following day, his body was “found in some out of the way place, bearing marks of having been beaten to death.”

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