While his military performance is met with mixed reviews of success and challenges, his letters to his family including his wife, Louisa, and daughters, Lou and Mary, are, at times, sharply honest but also personal, kind, and nostalgic for a time gone by.
Read MoreRobert Emmett Rodes was born in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1829. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1848 where he studied civil engineering. He also taught at his alma mater as an assistant professor until 1851 and left when a promotion he desired was given to Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. After leaving the Virginia Military Institute, Rodes went on to become the chief engineer for the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
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