Richard Eppes

Richard Eppes (May 2, 1824 – February 17, 1896) was a prominent planter in Prince George County, Virginia and a surgeon in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Eppes is notable for his having kept extensive journals about his plantation and life; the journals for 1849 and 1851–1896 are held by the Virginia Historical Society and have been invaluable to historians of the Antebellum South. His Appomattox Manor was used as a base by Union general Ulysses S. Grant during his siege of Petersburg, Virginia. Early life and education Eppes was born in City Point, Virginia on the estate his father Benjamin Cocke managed for his mother. After his father's death he took his mother's family name. Eppes went to Petersburg Classical Institute 1840–1843, enrolled at William & Mary in 1843, but transferred to the University of Pennsylvania where he took his medical degree in 1847. Two years after his graduation he travelled through the Near East. Eppes mother died in 1844 and after the estate was settled in 1851 he took control of Appomattox Manor as sole heir. Marriage and family In 1850 had married Josephine Dulles Horner, the daughter of the dean of the medical school at Pennsylvania, who died of complications during childbirth less than two years after their marriage. His wife's death plunged Eppes into a deep depression, but in 1854 he married, in accordance with his late wife's wishes, her sister Elizabeth Welsh Horner. They had nine children of which three died in childhood. Plantation owner At the time of the Civil War, Eppes owned nearly 130 slaves and 2,300 acres (9.3 km2) at City Point and Eppes Island directly across the James River. He had given up his medical practice to manage his three plantations, devoted to wheat and other grains, and associated slaves. Eppes favored preservation of the Union, provided that Southern rights in slave property could be protected. In the Election of 1860, he supported John C. Breckinridge, who led the Southern faction of the Democratic party. Breckinridge represented those who were states rights and pro-slavery men, but who were not radical secessionists.