Background
George Washington Rains was born in 1817 in Craven County, North Carolina, the eighth child of Gabriel M. and Hester (Ambrose) Rains, and a brother of Gabriel James Rains.
engineer inventor military author
George Washington Rains was born in 1817 in Craven County, North Carolina, the eighth child of Gabriel M. and Hester (Ambrose) Rains, and a brother of Gabriel James Rains.
He attended New Bern Academy, near his home, before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1838, from which institution he was graduated first in scientific studies in 1842.
In 1867 the Medical College conferred upon him the degree of M. D.
He was assigned to duty as a second lieutenant, Corps of Engineers, at Boston, but he transferred to the artillery and was ordered to the 4th Artillery stationed at Fort Monroe, Virginia.
In 1844 he was detached to West Point as assistant professor of chemistry, geology, and mineralogy. At the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846, he was ordered back to his regiment, which proceeded to Point Isabel, Texas. He was promoted first lieutenant in March 1847, was brevetted captain for gallant conduct at Contreras and Churubusco, and major for gallantry at Chapultepec.
After the termination of hostilities he returned to the United States and was stationed successively at New Orleans, at Pascagoula, Mississippi, and in lower Florida. In 1850 he was returned to the North and was stationed in turn at Forts Hamilton, Mackinaw and Columbus, and on Governors Island.
In October 1856 he resigned and went to Newburgh, New York, where he became president of the Washington Iron Works and of the Highland Iron Works.
During 1860 and 1861 he obtained patents on several inventions he had made relating to steam engines and boilers. In the Civil War Rains went with the Confederacy. He was commissioned major in the Corps of Artillery of the regular army on July 10, 1861, and was assigned to ordnance duties.
He was promoted lieutenant-colonel on the emergency staff officers' list as of May 22, 1862, and colonel as of July 12, 1863.
Immediately upon his entrance to duty in 1861 he was assigned to the procurement of gunpowder. He made a rapid tour of the South to find a suitable site for the establishment of a government manufactory and selected Augusta, Georgia. He initiated the wholesale collection of nitre from limestone caves in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina, publishing a pamphlet: Notes on Making Saltpetre from the Earth of the Caves. From his efforts grew the Nitre and Mining Bureau of the War Department. Rains followed the manufacturing processes of the Waltham Abbey Government Gunpowder Works of England, but experience dictated sundry improvements greatly promoting the efficiency of the plant, and these improvements he patented in the Confederate States Patent Office.
When operations were discontinued on April 18, 1865, the mills had produced two and three quarter million pounds of gunpowder. Rains was placed in charge of all munitions operations in Augusta on April 7, 1862. These included the old United States arsenal, which had been converted from a storage depot into a manufacturing armory, and three private foundries and machine works which had been taken over and enlarged for the manufacture of pistols, field artillery, ammunition, and ordnance equipment.
He was also commanding officer of troops at Augusta until a general officer was sent there to defend the place against Sherman in the fall of 1864. After the collapse of the Confederate government he remained for some time in Augusta as the guest of Governor Jenkins. Here in August 1866 he was elected professor of chemistry in the Medical College of Georgia, and in the following year he was also made regent of the Academy of Richmond County (an old military school).
He attained the deanship of the Medical College and served on the city board of health. In 1883 he resigned as dean but continued on the faculty of the Medical College until 1894. Retiring as professor emeritus, he returned to his wife's home near Newburgh, where he died.
A skilled engineer and inventor; he was instrumental in providing the Confederacy with much-needed gunpowder throughout the American Civil War. He also published Steam Portable Engines (1860); Rudimentary Course of Analytical and Applied Chemistry (1872); Interesting Chemical Exercises in Qualitative Analysis for Ordinary Schools (1880), and History of the Confederate Powder Works (1882).
On April 23, 1856, he was married to Frances Josephine Ramsdell.
