Americus Vespucius Rice – Brigadier General, United States Army, Member of Congress

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Courtesy of the U.S. House of Representatives

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Representative from Ohio; born in Perryville, Ashland County, Ohio, on November 18, 1835; pursued classical studies; attended Antioch College and was graduated from Union College, Schenectady, N.Y., in 1860; studied law; commissioned as captain in the Twenty-first Ohio Infantry April 27, 1861, and promoted through the ranks to brigadier general in 1865; manager of a private banking house in Ottawa, Ohio; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1872; elected as a Democrat to the Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Congresses (March 4, 1875-March 3, 1879); chairman, Committee on Invalid Pensions (Forty-fifth Congress); was not a candidate for renomination in 1878; president of A.V. Rice & Co., a banking concern of Ottawa; director in various business enterprises; appointed pension agent for Ohio in 1893 and served from May 1, 1894, until the fall of 1898; moved to Washington, D.C., in 1899 and engaged in banking and various other enterprises; appointed purchasing agent of the United States Census Bureau, which position he held at the time of his death in Washington, D.C., on April 4, 1904; interment in Arlington National Cemetery.

Americns Vespucius Rice, soldier, born in Perrysville, Ohio, 18 November, 1835. He was graduated at Union college in 1860, and began the study of law.

On 12 April, 1861, he enlisted in the National army, soon afterward was appointed a Lieutenant, and then a Captain in the 22d Ohio volunteers, and served in West Virginia. When his term of enlistment expired in August, 1861, he assisted in recruiting the 57th Ohio infantry, returned to the field as Captain of a company, and became  Lieutenant Colonel, and afterward Colonel, of the regiment. He fought in General Willlam T. Sherman’s campaigns, in General William B. Hazen’s division, was wounded several times, and during the march to the sea lost his right leg. The people of his district gave him a majority of votes as the Democratic candidate for congress in 1864, but he was defeated by the soldiers’ vote.

He was promoted Brigadier General on 31 May, 1865, and mustered out on 15 January, 1866. In 1868 he became manager of a private banking business in Ottawa, Ohio. He was a delegate to the Democratic national convention at Baltimore in 1872, and was elected in 1874 to congress, and re-elected in 1876.–His cousin, Rosella, author, born in Perrysville, Ohio, 11 August, 1827. She began writing for the local papers at an early age, published a
novel entitled “Mabel, or Heart Histories” (Columbus, 1858), and has since been a contributor of serial stories and humorous articles and of poems descriptive of nature to newspapers and magazines. She is also known as a public lecturer. In 1871-‘2 she contributed, under the pen-name of “Pipsissiway Ootts,” a serial entitled “Other People’s Windows” to Timothy S. Arthur’s ” Home Magazine.” It attracted attention, and was followed by others with the same signature, “My Girls and I” and other tales signed “Chatty Brooks,” and still other serials published under her own name, including “Fifty Years Ago, or the Cabins of the West.”

AMERICUS RICE AT ARLINGTON

WASHINGTON, April 6, 1904 – On the anniversary of the battle of Shiloh, where he was seriously wounded, the late Americus V. Rice, of Ohio, was buried at the National Cemetery at Arlington today.

The honorary pallbearers were: General H. V. Boyington, Representative Charles H. Grosvenor, Senator Dick, Colonel John McElroy, General John Beatty, Judge D. K. Waton, Colonel George Reid, W. B. Warner and T. L. Jeffords.

RICE, AMERICUS V

  • COL BRIG 57TH OHIO VOL INF USA GEN USA
  • DATE OF DEATH: 04/04/1904
  • BURIED AT: SECTION SO  SITE 1466
    ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

RICE, MARY M

  • DATE OF DEATH: 01/22/1923
  • BURIED AT: SECTION S  SITE 1466
    ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

RICE, MARY D/O AMERICUS V

  • DATE OF BIRTH: 03/21/1867
  • DATE OF DEATH: 11/09/1950
  • BURIED AT: SECTION 3  SITE 1466
    ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

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