Campaigns · First Bull Run, Peninsula, Seven Pines, Gaines' Mill, South Mountain, Antietam, Chacellorsville, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, Third Battle of Winchester
HistoryCentral · Primary Source & History GENERAL ROBERT EMMETT RHODES, CSA VITAL STATISTICS BORN: 1829 in Lynchburg, PA. DIED: 1864 in Winchester, VA. CAMPAIGNS: First Bull Run, Peninsula, Seven Pines, Gaines' Mill, South Mountain, Antietam, Chacellorsville, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, Third Battle of Winchester. HIGHEST RANK ACHIEVED: Major General BIOGRAPHY Robert Emmett Rodes was born on March 29, 1829, in Lynchburg, Virginia.
After graduating from the Virginia Military Institute in 1848, he served as an instructor until 1851. In that year, he moved to Alabama and began working as a civil engineer. Rodes got married, then became chief engineer for the Northwest & Southwest Alabama Railroad. Just before the Civil War began, he became a professor at his alma mater, VMI. Once the war began, he joined the Confederacy, and fought in the First Battle of Bull Run.
Commissioned a brigadier general on October 21, 1861, he took part in the Peninsula Campaign, in which Rodes was wounded, and the Battle of Antietam. After leading Lt. Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson's attack on the Union at Chancellorsville, Rodes was promoted to major general. He performed poorly at Gettysburg, however, and recovered his reputation somewhat at Spotsylvania. Rodes was killed at the Third Battle of Winchester, on September 19, 1864, while he directed a counterattack on Union troops.