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Contributed by: Diane Siniard Name: Robert Brank Vance State Served: North Carolina Highest Rank: Brig-Gen Birth Date: 1828 Death Date: 1899 Birth Place: Buncombe County, North Carolina Army: Confederacy Promotions: Promoted to Full Captain (Buncombe Guards NC Inf) Promoted to Full Colonel (29th NC Inf) Promoted to Full Brig-Gen Biography: Brigadier-General Robert B. Vance was born in Buncombe county, N. C., April 28, 1828, and received the old-field school education of his day. He was elected clerk of the court of pleas and quarter sessions for his native county in 1848, and after a term of eight years, declined re election and devoted himself to mercantile pursuits until the outbreak of war. He then organized a company, the Buncombe Life Guards, of which he was elected captain. This company was assigned to the Twenty-ninth regiment of infantry, and he was unanimously elected as its first colonel. The command left Camp Vance, in Buncombe county, October 28, 1861, for Raleigh, and in the latter part of November was sent to the field in east Tennessee. There the regiment served mainly in garrison duty on the railroad until February, 1862, when it was concentrated at Cumberland gap, in the defense of which it took part until the evacuation in June. Under the command of General Stevenson, Colonel Vance and his regiment took part in the assault and defeat of the enemy at Tazewell in August, after which Colonel Vance, in command of his own and other regiments, held a position at Baptist gap until the Federals retreated, when the army under Kirby Smith advanced into Kentucky as far as Frankfort, thence returning through Cumberland gap in October, marching about 500 miles in forty days. At the battle of Murfreesboro, December 31st, after the death of the brigade commander Gen. J. E. Rains, who was shot through the heart as the brigade charged the enemy, Colonel Vance took command of the brigade, and as Major-General McCown reported, "bore himself gallantly." After Bragg had fallen back to Shelbyville, Colonel Vance was taken with typhoid fever, and while in this condition his regiment was ordered to Jackson, Miss., and he never afterward was in command of it. While sick he received his commission as brigadier- general, issued in June, 1863. On returning to duty he was assigned to service in western North Carolina, in which region he was captured January 14, 1864, at Cosby creek, which ended his military career. He experienced the life of the prison camps at Nashville, Louisville, Camp Chase and Fort Delaware. While at the latter place he was appointed to act with General Beale in buying clothing for Confederate prisoners of war, which occupied his attention until he was paroled March 14, 1865. Since the return of peace he has had a conspicuous career in the Congress of the United States, as representative of the Eighth district, elected first in 1872, and continuously thereafter up to and including 1882. He declined renomination in 1884, but took an active part in the Democratic campaign of that year, and in the following spring was appointed assistant commissioner of patents by President Cleveland. He also attained prominence in the masonic order as grand-master for his State, in the Methodist church as delegate to general conferences and the ecumenical conference in London in 1881, and as a lecturer and author. Source: Confederate Military History, vol. V, p351 |