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Robert Emmett Rodes
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Oil on canvas of Robert Emmett Rodes

Credit: Virginia Military Institute

After graduating from the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in 1848, Robert Emmett Rodes (1829-1864) remained there to teach. When a promotion to full professor was given to one Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson instead, Rodes in 1851 left to become chief engineer for the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad in Alabama. On the first day of fighting at Gettysburg, Rodes led his division against the right flank of the Union First Corps. This oil portrait was one of a number that VMI professor William D. Washington completed of Confederate officers in the late 1860s.

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