View source for Robert Ould

{{Short description|Chief of the Bureau of Exchange for Confederate States of America}}
{{Infobox military person
|honorific_prefix= [[Confederate States Army#Ranks and insignia|Colonel]]
|name= Robert Ould
|birth_date= {{birth date|1820|1|31}}
|death_date= {{death date and age|1882|12|15|1820|1|31}}
|image= Robert Ould-wmm2.jpg
|image_size=220
|caption=
|nickname=
|birth_place= [[Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)|Georgetown]], [[Washington, D.C.]]
|death_place= [[Richmond, Virginia]]
|placeofburial= [[Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia)|Hollywood Cemetery]]<br>[[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]], [[Virginia]]
|placeofburial_label= Place of burial
|allegiance= {{flag|Confederate States of America}}
|branch= {{army|CSA}}
|serviceyears= 1862–1865 (CSA)
|rank= [[File:Confederate States of America Colonel.png|35px]] [[Confederate States Army#Ranks and insignia|Colonel (CSA)]]
|unit=
|commands= Commissioner of Exchange
|battles= [[American Civil War]]
|awards=
|relations=
|laterwork=
}}
'''Robert Ould''' (January 31, 1820 &ndash; December 15, 1882) was a lawyer who served as a [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] official during the [[American Civil War]]. From 1862 to 1865 he was the Confederate agent of exchange for [[prisoner of war|prisoners of war]] under the [[Dix–Hill Cartel]]. After the war he became a member of the [[Virginia General Assembly]] and was later elected president of a [[Railway company|railroad company]].
== Early life ==
Ould was born in [[Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)|Georgetown]], [[Washington, D.C.]], on January 31, 1820. After attending [[Washington & Jefferson College|Jefferson College]] in [[Pennsylvania]], he graduated in letters at [[George Washington University|Columbian College]] in D.C. in 1837, and in law at [[College of William & Mary|William & Mary College]] in 1842. During the [[History of the Southern United States#Antebellum era (1789–1861)|antebellum]] period he worked as a lawyer in Washington,{{sfn|Allardice|2008|p=296}}{{sfn|Evans|1899|pp=630–31}} and in 1855 he was appointed under [[Franklin Pierce]] to a commission to codify the district's laws.{{sfn|Hall|1981|pp=185–86}}{{sfn|Ould|Cross|1857|pp=v-vi}}
In 1859, following the shooting of [[Philip Barton Key II]], Ould was appointed by [[James Buchanan]] to succeed Key as [[United States Attorney for the District of Columbia]]. Ould charged Key's killer, [[Daniel Sickles|Daniel E. Sickles]], with murder, but lost the case after Sickles' lawyer (and future [[United States Secretary of War]]) [[Edwin M. Stanton]] invoked one of the first uses of the temporary [[insanity defense]] in U.S. history.{{sfn|Hall|1981|p=186}}{{sfn|Wheelan|2010|pp=23–24}}
== Civil War ==
Ould was also a [[brigadier general]] in the [[District of Columbia]] militia; in his role as United States Attorney, he advised Buchanan not to arm newly raised Unionist militia companies in the District.<ref>[[Charles Pomeroy Stone]], "Washington on the Eve of the War", in [[Robert Underwood Johnson]] and [[Clarence Clough Buel]] (1887), edd., ''Battles and Leaders of the Civil War'', reprint, Secaucus, NJ:  Castle, pp. 12, 18-20, {{ISBN|0-89009-569-8}}.</ref>  Following the [[Virginia in the American Civil War#Secession|secession of Virginia]] in 1861, Ould decided to support the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]] and moved with his family to [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]]. Early in the war he was appointed to the [[Confederate States War Department|War Department]] as Assistant Secretary of War, serving under [[Judah P. Benjamin]].{{sfn|Hall|1981|p=186}}{{sfn|Evans|1899|pp=630–31}}
In July 1862 Ould was appointed as the chief agent of exchange under the terms of the [[Dix–Hill Cartel]], with the rank of colonel. In this position he was responsible for negotiating the exchange and treatment of prisoners of war with his [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] counterparts.{{sfn|Wagner|Gallagher|Finkelman|2002|p=620}}{{sfn|Heuvel|Heuvel|2013|p=115}} He held the office for most of the remainder of the war, until he was succeeded by [[William Norris (Confederate signal officer)|William Norris]] in April 1865.{{sfn|Tidwell|Hall|Gaddy|1988|p=85}} During the war he also served as [[judge advocate]] in Richmond{{sfn|Allardice|2008|p=296}} and seems to have been a high-ranking official in the [[Confederate Secret Service]].{{sfn|Tidwell|Hall|Gaddy|1988|p=49}}{{sfn|Blackett|1989|p=325}}
== Postwar career ==
After the [[Battle of Appomattox Court House|surrender at Appomattox]] in 1865, Ould was arrested and briefly incarcerated at [[Libby Prison]] on charges of misappropriating funds belonging to Union prisoners, but was soon after released,{{sfn|Allardice|2008|p=296}}{{sfn|Ainsworth|Kirkley|1899|p=667}} and on October 30 he received a [[Pardon#United States|pardon]] from [[Andrew Johnson]].{{sfn|Bergeron|1991|p=214}} He subsequently defended former Confederate president [[Jefferson Davis]] against charges of treason.{{sfn|Hall|1981|p=186}}
After the war, Ould remained in Richmond and returned to practicing law. In 1866 he was elected to one term in the [[Senate of Virginia|Virginia Senate]], and from 1874 to 1875 he served as a representative for Richmond in the [[Virginia House of Delegates|House of Delegates]].{{sfn|Hall|1981|p=186}}{{sfn|Commonwealth of Virginia|1918|pp=190, 195}} In 1878 he was elected president of the [[Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad]] Company.{{sfn|Hall|1981|p=186}}
Ould died on January 15, 1882, and was buried at [[Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia)|Hollywood Cemetery]] in Richmond.{{sfn|Allardice|2008|p=296}}
== Notes ==
{{reflist|2}}
== References ==
* {{cite book | title = The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series II, Volume VIII | publisher = [[United States Government Publishing Office|Government Printing Office]] | editor1-last = Ainsworth | editor1-first = Fred C. | editor2-last = Kirkley | editor2-first = Joseph W. | location = Washington | year = 1899 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=CAcrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA667 }}
* {{cite book | first = Bruce S. | last = Allardice  | title = Confederate Colonels: A Biographical Register | publisher = [[University of Missouri Press]] | location = Columbia | year = 2008 | isbn = 978-0-8262-1809-4 | url = https://archive.org/details/confederatecolon00alla | url-access =registration| page =[https://archive.org/details/confederatecolon00alla/page/296 296]}}
* {{cite book | title = The Papers of Andrew Johnson, Volume 9, September 1865&ndash;January 1866 | publisher = [[University of Tennessee Press|The University of Tennessee Press]] | editor-last = Bergeron | editor-first = Paul H. | location = Knoxville | year = 1991 | isbn = 0-87049-689-1 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=fKqJFXaF8iUC&pg=PA214 }}
* {{cite book | title = Thomas Morris Chester: Black Civil War Correspondent, His Dispatches from the Virginia Front. | publisher = [[Da Capo Press]] | editor-last = Blackett | editor-first = R. J. M. | location = Cambridge | year = 1989 | isbn = 0-306-80453-0 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=zgKA4cV8SV4C&pg=PA325 }}
* {{cite book | last = Commonwealth of Virginia | title = Annual Reports of Officers, Boards and Institutions of the Commonwealth of Virginia, for the Year Ending September 30, 1917 | publisher = Davis Bottom, Superintendent of Public Printing | location = Richmond | year = 1918 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_nVDAQAAMAAJ }}
* {{cite book | title = Confederate Military History, Vol. I | publisher = Confederate Publishing Company | editor-last = Evans | editor-first = Clement A. | editor-link = Clement A. Evans | location = Atlanta | year = 1899 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=CgE0AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA630 }}
* {{cite book | title =  Portraits in the Collection of the Virginia Historical Society: A Catalogue | publisher = [[University Press of Virginia]] | editor-last = Hall | editor-first = Virginius Cornick | location = Charlottesville | year = 1981 | isbn = 0-8139-0813-2 | url = https://books.google.com/books?ei=wBGzVKvTH4KUNtehg4gB }}
* {{cite book | first1 = Sean M. | last1 = Heuvel | first2 = Lisa L. | last2 = Heuvel| title =  The College of William and Mary in the Civil War | publisher = McFarland & Company, Publishers | location = Jefferson | year = 2013 | isbn = 978-0-7864-7309-0 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=N0Uw519SJXwC&pg=PA114 }}
* {{cite book | title = The Revised Code of the District of Columbia, Prepared Under the Authority of the Act of Congress, Entitled "An Act to Improve the Laws of the District of Columbia, and to Codify the Same," Approved March 3, 1855 | publisher = [[Alfred O. P. Nicholson|A. O. P. Nicholson]], Public Printer | editor1-last = Ould | editor1-first = Robert | editor2-last = Cross | editor2-first = William B. B. | location = Washington | year = 1857 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=XTwbAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR5 }}
* {{cite book | first1 = William A. | last1 = Tidwell | first2 = James O. | last2 = Hall | first3 = David Winfred | last3 = Gaddy | title = Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln | publisher = [[University Press of Mississippi]] | location = Jackson | year = 1988 | isbn = 0-87805-347-6 | url = https://archive.org/details/comeretribution00will | url-access =registration| page =[https://archive.org/details/comeretribution00will/page/49 49]}}
* {{cite book | title = The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference | publisher = [[Simon & Schuster]] | editor1-last = Wagner | editor1-first = Margaret E. | editor2-last = Gallagher | editor2-first = Gary W. |editor2-link = Gary W. Gallagher | editor3-last = Finkelman | editor3-first = Paul |editor3-link = Paul Finkelman | location = New York | year = 2002 | isbn = 978-1-4391-4884-6 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=7svFnyOLknUC&pg=PA620 }}
* {{cite book | first = Joseph | last = Wheelan  | title = Libby Prison Breakout: The Daring Escape from the Notorious Civil War Prison | publisher = [[PublicAffairs]] | location = New York | year = 2010 | isbn = 978-1-58648-716-4 | url = https://archive.org/details/libbyprisonbreak0000whee | url-access =registration| page =[https://archive.org/details/libbyprisonbreak0000whee/page/23 23]}}
{{wikisource author}}
==External links==
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Robert Ould}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ould, Robert}}
[[Category:1820 births]]
[[Category:1882 deaths]]
[[Category:Burials at Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia)]]
[[Category:United States Attorneys for the District of Columbia]]
[[Category:Confederate States Army officers]]
[[Category:19th-century American lawyers]]