Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/227

 PROMINENT PERSONS

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Fort Donelson, he recruited his regiment in southwestern \'irginia. ahnost to its full complement. Upon its reorganization, he was tendered the position of colonel by the ofificers of his regiment, but declined, pre- ferring that the old officers should retain their places, and being willing to again serve as major. Subsequently, however, he became colonel, and was also commissioned brigadier-general, but never served as such, the commission failing to reach him because of military movements. He was wounded, it was thought fatally, at the battle of Cloyd's Farm. Recovering from his injury, he rejoined his command in the Valley of Virginia, and participated in all of the en- gagements in that entire campaign. After the surrender of Gen. Lee, he refused to accept the parole until August. 1865. when he realized that all effort to continue the struggle had been abandoned. Following the war, Mr. Smith began the practice of law in Warrenton, Virginia, being unwilling to restime in Charleston because of the re- quirements of the court there as to the oath cf allegiance to the Federal government, and because he had been indicted for treason. He practiced at Warrenton, with the excep- tion of a brief interval, until 1884, and for six years of that time served as county judge. He was also a member of the state legislature for one term, and was chosen for a second term. However, he became an elector for Cleveland and Hendricks, and was appointed by President Cleveland to the position of United States attorney for New Mexico, for a term of four years. On the expiration of his term of service he re- turned to Virginia, and became connected with the settlement of the Virginia debt, and was largely instrumental not only in

jireventing its repudiation, but also in secur- i!ig its adjustment on terms creditable to the commonwealth. He was appointed chief justice of the territory of New Mexico, at the beginning of Cleveland's second ad- ministration, without solicitation, and served out a term of four years. He then returned tu Virginia, but did not resume the prac- tice of law, and lived quietly at his home in Warrenton. He married Elizabeth Fairfax, daughter of Judge \\'illiam H. Gaines, of Warrenton.

Rouss, Charles B., born in Frederick county. Alary land, February 11, 1836. son of Peter Hoke and Belinda (Baltzell) Rouss, and a descendant of Austrian ancestry, vari- ous members being prominent in the public affairs of the Empire, notable among whom was George Rouss, a member of the com- mon council of Kronstadt, in 1500. Peter Hoke Rouss in 1841 removed from Mary- land to Berkeley county, \^irginia, where he purchased in the Shenandoah Valley, twelve miles from Winchester, an estate to which he gave the name of Runnymede. Charles B. Rouss supplemented his public school education by attendance at the Win- chester Academy, where he was a student from the age of ten until fifteen, when he took a position as clerk in a store. Three years later he engaged in business on his own account, having accumulated sufficient capital from his earnings, and after another three years was proprietor of the most ex- tensive store in that section of the county. Upon his return from the war between the states, in which he served as a private in the Twelfth Virginia Regiment, he engaged in a mercantile business in New York City, but fniled, the result of the then general credit