[2] When Sandie was 13, the family moved to Lexington, Virginia, because of the free tuition available at Washington College to ministers' sons, as well as because Latimer Parish (Grace Episcopal Church)[3] offered Rev.

Sandie Pendleton completed the course of studies at Washington College in three years, during which he met Maj. Thomas Jackson (later nicknamed Stonewall) of the VMI faculty through the Graham literary society.

"[4] Sandie Pendleton remained in Lexington for the next two years, teaching mathematics and Latin at his alma mater, as well as helping his father at the school for boys and visiting relatives in Eastern Virginia.

Thus, pursuant to his commission as a second lieutenant in the Provisional Army of Virginia, Sandie Pendleton left for Harpers Ferry on June 11, having completed only four of seven examinations necessary for the master's degree, and not having submitted the required essay.

[6] At Harper's Ferry, Sandie Pendleton reported for duty and temporarily worked with the Rockbridge Artillery, a volunteer unit his father had organized and brought there a few weeks earlier.

Soon Stonewall Jackson, commanding the First Brigade of the Army of the Shenandoah (i.e. Confederate forces in Harpers Ferry led by General Joseph E. Johnston), requested young Pendleton join his staff as its ordnance officer.

After accompanying Jackson's corpse to its final resting place back at Lexington in the Shenandoah Valley, Pendleton returned to duty with the Second Corps staff under its new commander, Richard S. Ewell during the Gettysburg Campaign.

Sandie Pendleton met Catherine "Kate" Carter Corbin when General "Stonewall" Jackson and his troops were stationed at her father's Moss Neck Manor near Fredericksburg during the winter of 1862.

An ancestor of Kate, Richard Corbin succeeded Lord Dunmore when the latter fled Williamsburg, Virginia, and served as royal governor until the beginning of the American Revolution, when he was deposed as a Loyalist.

"[8] Pendleton was portrayed by Jeremy London in the 2003 Civil War film Gods and Generals, and was a minor character in the Jeff Shaara book of the same name.