New Kent-King William-Norfolk City County Virginia USGenWeb Archives Biographies.....Douglas, Beverly B 1822 - 1878
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Alice Warner Brosey http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00015.html#0003503 May 25, 2010, 2:07 pm

Source: The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. V ; 1895
Author: James T. White & Company

Douglas, Beverly B., representative in congress, was born at Providence Forge,
New Kent county, Va., Dec. 21, 1822. After a course of study at the common
schools, he entered William and Mary college, and afterward the University of
Edinburgh, receiving between those two institutions a liberal collegiate
education. Returning to America, he studied law at the celebrated school of
Judge Beverly Tucker, where he was graduated in 1843. He was admitted to the bar
the following year, and for a short time practiced his profession in the county
of New Kent, and also in the city of Norfolk. In 1846 he removed to King William
county, where he soon rose to distinction in his profession, occupying, while
still a young man, a front rank as an eloquent practitioner and able advocate,
and enjoying an enviable reputation as a safe and reliable counselor. It was,
however, in the trial of causes before a jury that he gained his highest repute,
his preeminence as an orator being unquestioned. When the constitution of the
state was called in 1850, Mr. Douglas was chosen a member of that body from four
counties. In 1852 he was elected a member of the senate of Virginia, in which
body he served continuously until 1865, and where from 1853 to 1858 he served as
chairman of the committee on finance, and during the civil war as chairman of
the committee on military affairs. He entered the Confederate army as first
lieutenant of "Lee's Rangers;" was promoted to captain and afterward to major of
the 5th Virginia cavalry, in which capacity he served until 1863, when he
resigned. Politically, he was always a democrat, and in 1860 was a presidential
elector on the ticket of Breckenridge and Lane. He was also a delegate to the
democratic national convention held in New York in 1868, which nominated Seymour
and Blair. In 1874 Mr. Douglas was elected from the first congressional district
of Virginia a member of the forty-fourth congress, and two years later he was
elected a member of the forty-fifth congress. He took no active part, however,
in the proceedings of the house, his most important service being a chairman of
the select committee of the forty-fourth congress to investigate the affairs of
the Freedmen's savings bank. He was married to a daughter of Robin Pollard, a
prominent citizen of King William County. He died Dec. 22, 1878.

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