Robert Eden Scott
{{Short description|American politician (1808–1862)}}
{{Other people|Robert Scott}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| honorific-prefix =
| name = Robert Eden Scott
| honorific-suffix =
| image =
| state_delegate = Virginia
| district = Fauquier County, Virginia
| term_start = December 2, 1839
| term_end = December 4, 1842
| preceded = Elias Edmunds
| alongside = James K. Marshall
James W. Foster
| succeeded = William R. Smith
| state_delegate2 = Virginia
| district2 = Fauquier County, Virginia
| term_start2 = December 1, 1845
| term_end2 = December 3, 1849
| preceded2 = Elias Edmunds
| alongside2 = Thomas Hall
William R. Smith
Alfred Rector
| succeeded2 = William M. Hume
| state_delegate3 = Virginia
| district3 = Fauquier County, Virginia
| term_start3 = January 12, 1850
| term_end3 = June 7, 1852
| preceded3 = Samuel J. Tabbs
| alongside3 = William M. Hume
Silas B. Hunton
| succeeded3 =Wellington Gordon
| birth_date ={{birth date|1808|4|23|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Warrenton, Fauquier County, Virginia
| death_date = {{death date and age|1862|5|3|1808|4|23|mf=y}}
| death_place = Warrenton, Virginia
| party = Whig
| spouse =
| children =R. Taylor Scott
| residence =
| alma_mater =
| profession = Lawyer, politician
| committees =
|allegiance={{flagcountry|Confederate States of America}}
}}
Robert Eden Scott (April 23, 1808 – May 3, 1862) was a Virginia planter, lawyer and politician who served many terms in the Virginia General Assembly. He also represented Fauquier County at the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861 and the surrounding district in the Provisional Confederate Congress, until his death at the hands of Union Army deserters while defending his farm.
Early and family life
Born in Fauquier County, Virginia, in 1808 to "Judge" John Scott and his wife Elizabeth Pickett, Robert Eden Scott was the grandson of Episcopal priest Rev. John Scott, who supported independence in the American Revolutionary War. Robert E. Scott survived three wives. On March 10, 1831, he married Elizabeth Taylor, daughter of Alexandria lawyer Robert L. Taylor.Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography, 1915, available online Their son R. Taylor Scott was a Virginia lawyer, served in the Confederate States Army in the Civil War, served in the Virginia House of Delegates and was Attorney General of Virginia.{{citation needed |date=March 2024}} His daughter Josephine married Tazewell Ellett.{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/fl-1978556-tn-267949/page/459/mode/2up |title=Colonial Families of the Southern States of America |last=Hardy |first=Stella Pickett |year=1911 |publisher=Tobias A. Wright |pages=469–460 |via=Archive.org |access-date=2024-03-24}}{{Open access}}
Career
Scott, a prominent WhigEppa Hunton Autobiography p. 14, available at https://archive.org/stream/autobiographyofe00hunt/autobiographyofe00hunt_djvu.txt served many times as one of two delegates representing Fauquier County (part-time) in the Virginia House of Delegates, winning election and re-election from 1835–1842 and again from 1845–1852.Cynthia Miller Leonard, Virginia General Assembly 1619-1978 (Richmond: Virginia State Library 1978) pp. 392, 396, 400, 416, 421, 425, 431, 441, 443, 449, 475 He was also a delegate to the state constitutional convention of 1850–1851 and the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861, changing his vote between April 4 and 17th to support secession.{{cite web|title=How Virginia Convention delegates voted on secession, April 4 and April 17… |url=http://www.virginiamemory.com/docs/votes_on_secession.pdf?_ga=1.136899061.456866595.1437301396|work=Union or Secession|publisher=Library of Virginia|accessdate=15 December 2016|ref=vamemory}} By 1860, Scott owned 34 slaves, about half children under 15 years of age.slave schedule in 1860 U.S. Federal Census for Southwest Revenue District, Fauquier County Virginia Scott also represented the state in the Provisional Confederate Congress from 1861 to 1862.
The autobiography of noted abolitionist Moncure D. Conway (1904) mentions the prominent planter. Conway recalls Scott's pre-Civil War political orientation, "The Hon. Robert E. Scott charmed me by his fine personality and manners, but he was the leading Whig." Conway admired Scott for opposing the "fire eaters" as well as for publicly predicting that secession would end in ruin.{{cite book |last=Conway |first=Moncure Daniel |title=Autobiography: Memories and Experiences of Moncure Daniel Conway; Volume 1 |date=7 June 2012 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9IimwquriMMC&q=Robert+E.+Scott |pages=66–67 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-05060-9}}
Despite not personally fighting for the Confederacy, Scott was killed by Union deserters when he confronted them for abusing his land.{{cite web|url=http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/scott7.html|website=PoliticalGraveyard.com|title=Political Graveyard: Scott, O to R|publisher=Lawrence Kestenbaum|accessdate=7 April 2015}}
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Scott, Robert Eden}}
Category:Deputies and delegates to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States
Category:Members of the Virginia House of Delegates
Category:People of Virginia in the American Civil War
Category:People from Warrenton, Virginia
Category:Politicians killed in the American Civil War
Category:Slave owners killed in the American Civil War
Category:19th-century members of the Virginia General Assembly
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