Historical Rosters Database
Robert L. Madison
Roster ID 7178This is a summary. Contact the Archives for additional biographical information.
| First Name: | Robert |
| Middle Name: | L. |
| Last Name: | Madison |
| Suffix: | |
| Affiliation: | Faculty or Staff |
| Biography & Genealogy: | Robert L. Madison (VMI Faculty/Staff; New Market Staff). Genealogy: Born February 22, 1828 at Woodberry Forest, Orange Co., Virginia. Parents- Robert Lewis Madison and Eliza Strachan, of Petersburg, VA. Paternal grandfather- Gen. William Madison, youngest brother of President James Madison. Education: Graduate, College of William & Mary; studied at the University of Virginia; received his medical degree at Jefferson College, Philadelphia. Career: He practiced medicine first at Petersburg, VA and then at Baltimore, MD. In October 1859 he was appointed to the VMI Faculty as "Mercer Professor of Animal and Vegetable Physiology Applied to Agriculture," and as Post Surgeon (VMI Physician). During the early part of the Civil War he served as a surgeon in the Confederate Army and was in charge of a hospital in Orange County, VA. He then returned to his duties at VMI and was present when the Corps of Cadets participated in the Battle of New Market on May 15, 1864. He was the family physician of both General Robert E. Lee and Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury, and attended each in his last illness. He married twice: First to Letitia Lee and second to Helen Bannister; he had three sons- Monro, Robert, and Edmond. Madison contracted pneumonia during the closing days of the war and never completely regained his health. He died May 26, 1878 after a long illness, and is buried in the Stonewall Jackson Cemetery, Lexington, Virginia. |
