Robert E. Grant (politician)

The first child born to farmer James Grant (1800–1886?) and his wife Elizabeth (1805 – before 1890), Robert E. Grant had three younger brothers and four younger sisters.[1] Although neither he nor his father owned slaves in 1850, by 1860 in addition to employing a 27-year-old free black farm laborer, Grant owned a 40-year-old enslaved black man, and 24- and 12-year-old enslaved black females.[2][3]

Grant married Ann Long Snodgrass on December 15, 1850, and they had nearly a dozen children, although several failed to reach adulthood.[4]

In 1857, Washington County voters elected Grant to the Virginia House of Delegates.[5]^: 467 Although he failed to win re-election, Washington County voters elected him and fellow Unionist John Arthur Campbell as their delegates to the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861, defeating pro-secessionists William Y.C. White and Ben Rush Floyd.[6]^: 512[5]^: 477 Grant initially supported Union, but either left or changed his vote at the end to support secession.

After Virginia's voters also ratified secession, and Confederate troops won at the First Battle of Manassas in July 1861, Grant recruited the King's Mountain Rifles in Abingdon and accepted a commission as its captain. His unit became Company H of the 37th Virginia Infantry, commanded by former judge Samuel V. Fulkerson.[7][6]^: 517 Capt. Grant served for less than a year in the unit, including during General Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign and the First Battle of Kernstown. His unit refused to re-elect him during the April 1862 reorganization, instead promoting Sergeant William F. Duff to captain of Company H.[7]^{: 30, 115}

Grant moved his family to Austin, Texas in 1872.[6]^: 783 Virginia farmers had endured two seasons of terrible crops, and by 1880 his parents had also moved to Abbeville County, South Carolina to live with his sister and a grandson.[8] Grant prospered financially in Texas, but died in Austin on July 17, 1888, survived for nearly two decades by his widow, as well as several children. He is buried at Austin's Oakwood Cemetery.[4]