Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/143

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ways a Democrat, in i860 he was a presi- dential elector on the Breckenridge and Lane ticket, and in 1868 a delegate to the convention which nominated Seymour and Blair. He was elected to the forty-fourth and forty-fifth congresses, but took no ac- tive part in the house proceedings, his most important service being as chairman of the select committee to investigate the conduct of the Freedmen's Savings Bank. He mar- ried a daughter of Robin Pollard, of King William county. He died December 22, 1878.

Duke, Richard Thomas Walker, born at Mill Brook, Albemarle county, Virginia, June 6, 1822, son of Richard Duke and Maria Walker, his wife, daughter of Capt. Thomas Walker. Richard T. W. Duke attended private schools until 1842, when he entered the Virginia Military Institute, at Lexing- ton, Virginia, from which he graduated in 1845, second in a class of twenty. During his last two years he was cadet professor of mathematics, and in conjunction with the late Gen. Francis Smith, prepared an arith- metic which is still used in that institution. After graduating he taught in the Richmond Academy with Col. Claude Crozet, during the sessions of 1845-46, and then taught two years in Lewisburg, Greenbrier county, now West Virginia In 1849. being recalled to Albemarle county by the death of his father, he entered the University of Virginia, and graduated in the law school with the degree of Bachelor of Laws in one session. He then located in Charlottesville, Virginia, and commenced the practice of law, and practiced there until his death. He was regarded as one of the ablest lawyers at the bar. In 1858 he was elected common-

wealth's attorney for Albemarle county, and held that office until elected to the for- ty-first congress in 1870. In 1859, just after the John Brown raid, he organized the "Al- bemarle Rifles," a volunteer company of riflemen, which in 1861 was mustered in as Company B, Nineteenth Virginia Regiment, C. S. A., he being captain of that company up to the re-organization of the army in 1862. At the reorganization he was elected colonel of the Forty-sixth Regiment, Wise's brigade, and from May, 1862, to March, 1864, was colonel of that regiment, spend- ing the winter of 1863-64 in South Caro- lina with the brigade. In March, 1864, Col. Duke resigned his commission as colonel of the Forty-sixth Virginia Regiment, but re- mained out of service only thirty days, in the meantime organizing the reserve forces, taking command of a battalion of reserves at Richmond in 1864. At first the reserves were employed in guarding prisoners at Belle Isle, but the fall of 1864, and winter of 1864-65 they were under Col. Duke in the trenches at Fort Harrison. At the evacuation Col. Duke was placed in com- mand of the brigade of reserves. He was with Gen. Custis Lee's division, captured at Sailor's Creek. He was taken to Wash- ington, and was in the old capitol prison the night President Lincoln was assassin- ated. He and five hundred other prisoners were threatened with burning by the Wash- ington roughs, but the mob was dispersed, and Col. Duke taken to Johnson's Island Prison, where about 2.500 Confederate of- ficers were imprisoned. Col. Duke remained a prisoner of war until July 25, 1865, when he was released. Col. Duke was in the en- gagement at First Manassas, and was com- plimented in Gen. Beauregard's report of