Robert B. Vance

Robert Brank Vance (April 24, 1828 – November 28, 1899), nephew of the earlier Congressman Robert Brank Vance (1793–1827) and brother of Zebulon B. Vance, was a North Carolina Democratic politician who served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for six terms (1873–1885). He was chairman of the United States House Committee on Patents. During the American Civil War, Vance served in the Confederate States Army, where he reached the rank of brigadier general.

Early life Birth and family Vance was born in 1828, near present-day Weaverville, in the old homestead on Reems Creek, at Buncombe County, North Carolina. He was eldest son of David Vance II and Mira Margaret Baird. He was a grandson of David Vance and of Zebulon Baird, both members of the North Carolina General Assembly.

He was named for his paternal uncle, Robert Brank Vance, a former congressman who was killed in a duel during his 1827 campaign.

Vance came from a Scotch-Irish, slave-owning family, with a history of military and public service, including his paternal grandfather, who served in the Revolutionary War, and his own father, who fought in the War of 1812. His younger brother was Zebulon B. Vance.

Childhood Vance had always grown up around slaves. When he was twelve, his father owned 12 slaves, the names of which eight are known – Sandy, Leah, Ann, Aggy, May, Bob, Richard and Venus. Venus, the eldest of his father's slaves, had raised Vance and his siblings, and was referred as "Mammy Venus."

In total, the slaves tended to the Vance children, cooked the family's meals, made the housing wares, fetched the water, cultivated the farm crops, and, otherwise, allowing Vance to spend his formative years pursuing his education and reading the classics from a 500-volume library that his family inherited from his uncle.

During the 1860 presidential election, Vance supported the Constitutional Union Party candidate, John Bell.

The regiment was sent to eastern Tennessee to guard the bridges on the Bristol-Chattanooga road.

While in office, he obtained appropriations for every county in his district to get daily mail delivery, and to have the French Broad River dredged from Brevard to Asheville for transportation.

He sat on the Committee on Pensions for Veterans of the War of 1812, the Committee on Coinage, and was the four-term Chairman of the Committee on Patents.

It is unclear whether Vance declined reelection or lost his seat in 1884.

In 1892, he married Lizzie R. Cook. He was Grand Master of Masons of North Carolina in 1868 and 1869.

Poetry Vance was a published poet. He released the following collections of his work: (some pieces were written while he was imprisoned in Fort Delaware) Oneka The White Plume of the Cherokee Shadows of Mountain Life

Death Vance died near Asheville, North Carolina, at his farm, on November 28, 1899.