Carte de visite photograph of Rodes in uniform. Chest up view wearing double-breasted frock. Image is clear with very good contrast. Mount has been trimmed and the image shows light wear and wrinkling. Pencil identifications on front and back. Photographer's backmark, N.R. Selby, Baltimore.

Robert Emmett Rodes (March 29, 1829 – September 19, 1864) was a Confederate general in the Civil War, and the first of Robert E. Lee's divisional commanders not trained at West Point.

Rodes was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, and graduated from Virginia Military Institute in 1848. He taught at VMI as an assistant professor until 1851; he left when a promotion he wanted to full professor was given instead to Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Rodes used his civil engineering skills to become chief engineer for the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He was chief engineer of the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad until the start of the war. Although born a Virginian, he chose to serve his adopted state of Alabama.

His division led Stonewall Jackson's devastating surprise attack at the Battle of Chancellorsville; Jackson, on his deathbed, recommended that Rodes be promoted to major general. Rodes then served in the corps of Richard S. Ewell at the Battle of Gettysburg and in the Overland Campaign, before that corps was sent to the Shenandoah Valley under Jubal Early, where Rodes was killed at the Third Battle of Winchester.

Rodes is buried in Presbyterian Cemetery, Lynchburg, Virginia.  [jet] [PH:L]

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