Background
RAINS, George Washington was born in 1817 in Craven County, North Carolina, United States, United States. Son of Gabriel M. and Hester (Ambrose) Rains and brother of the future Confederate General Gabriel James Rains.
Businessman educator Industrialist army officer
RAINS, George Washington was born in 1817 in Craven County, North Carolina, United States, United States. Son of Gabriel M. and Hester (Ambrose) Rains and brother of the future Confederate General Gabriel James Rains.
Graduate (1st in science studies), United States Military Academy, 1842. M.D. (honorary), Medical College Virginia, 1867.
His parents moved to Alabama while he was young, and after attending New Bern Academy in North Carolina, he graduated third in a class of fifty-six from the U.S. Military Academy in 1842 and began a military career in the Corps of Engineers. He married Frances Josephine Ramsdell on April 23, 1856. Rains was assistant engineer at Fort Warren in Boston in 1842-1843 and was garrisoned at Fort Monroe in 1843-1844.
From 1844 to 1846, he was assistant professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology at West Point. In 1846, he was promoted to first lieutenant and was stationed at the Quartermaster Depot at Port Isabel, Texas. During the Mexican War, he was breveted captain and later major, seeing action at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, and Molino del Rey.
In 1847- 1848, he was an aide-de-camp to Generals Winfield Scott and Gideon Pillow. In 1848-1849, he was stationed at the garrison at New Orleans. The following year he fought in the Seminole War in Florida.
He was promoted to captain in 1856 but resigned the same year to become part-owner and president of the Washington Iron Works and Highland Iron Works in Newburgh, New York, positions which he held until 1861. During this time, he patented steam engines and boilers. When the Civil War began, he joined the Confederate Army.
Rains enlisted as a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate Artillery and was responsible for equipping powder mills at Augusta, Georgia. These mills produced 2,750,000 pounds of gunpowder for the Confederacy during the war years. He was placed in charge of all munitions production in Augusta in April 1862.
Rains also initiated the wholesale collection of nitre and authored Notes on Making Saltpetre from the Earth of the Caves (1863). After the war, he remained in Augusta. He was professor of chemistry and pharmacy at the University of Georgia from 1867 to 1884, serving as dean of the faculty in 1884.
For the next ten years, he held the position of professor emeritus, a title which he abandoned when he went into business in New York in 1894. In 1882, Rains published History of the Confederate States Powder Works.
Author: pamphlet Notes on Making Saltpetre from the Earth of the Caves, circa 1862. History of the Confederate Powder Works, 1882.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.
Married Frances Josephine Ramsdell, April.