MAJOR WM. R. GAINES.
Major Gaines, registrar of Land Office for the City of Richmond, was
born in Charlotte county, Virginia, on April 8, 1833. He finished his
studies at Hampden-Sidney College, and was engaged in farming from
1856 to the beginning of the war. He entered the Confederate States
army as a private in Company B, 14th Virginia Cavalry; was promoted
first lieutenant, the regiment in Jenkin's brigade, and then McCausland's,
after the burning of Chambersburg; was wounded at Moorefield,
Virginia, August 7, 1863, losing left leg, later was made prisoner
by Sheridan's forces, and held five weeks, then left by this army when it
moved, as one who was about to die, but recovered sufficiently to return
home.
He was engaged in farming again until 1877, he was a member of the
Virginia legislature, session of 1873-74. In 1877 he went into a mercantile
business in Charlotte county, four years later returned to farming;
was one year clerk for the State Railroad commissioners; sergeant-at-arms
of the House of Delegates from that time until elected to his
present position. He has also been supervisor of Charlotte county for
the past twenty years.
Col. Robert F. Gaines, father of Major Gaines, born in Charlotte
county, Virginia, died in November, 1873, aged seventy-four years, was
a son of Major Wm. Gaines of Charlotte county, whose father was
Richard Gaines of Virginia. The mother of Major Wm. R. Gaines was
Susan W., daughter of Henry Edmunds, Esq., of Halifax county, Virginia.
She died in 1875, aged sixty-five years.
