Representative Augustus Alexandria Chapman

Augustus Alexandria Chapman (March 9, 1805 – June 7, 1876) was a 19th-century politician, lawyer, and militia officer from Virginia who served several terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, one term in the United States House of Representatives, and as a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850. Born in Union, Virginia (now Union, Monroe County, West Virginia), he came of age in the trans-Allegheny region of the Commonwealth at a time when western Virginians were increasingly engaged in debates over representation, internal improvements, and the balance of political power within the state.

Chapman pursued a legal education as a young man and studied law at the University of Virginia, from which he received a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1827. He had already been admitted to the bar in 1825, an indication that he began his legal training and professional preparation at an early age. After admission to the bar, he commenced the practice of law in his native Union, Virginia, building a career that combined legal work with growing involvement in local and regional affairs.

Around 1829, Chapman settled more permanently in Monroe County, Virginia, where he continued his law practice and became a prominent figure in the community. His professional success and local standing led to election to the Virginia House of Delegates, in which he served from 1835 to 1841. During these years in the state legislature he represented the interests of his largely rural constituency in western Virginia, participating in debates over state policy and infrastructure that were central to the region’s development. His service in Richmond helped establish his reputation as an effective Democratic Party legislator and prepared him for higher office.

Chapman was later elected as a Democrat to the United States House of Representatives, representing Virginia in the Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth Congresses. He served two terms in Congress from March 4, 1843, to March 3, 1847. As a member of the Democratic Party representing Virginia, Augustus Alexandria Chapman contributed to the legislative process during these two terms in office, participating in the democratic process at the national level and representing the interests of his constituents during a significant period in American history marked by issues such as territorial expansion and sectional tensions. After completing his congressional service, he returned to Virginia and resumed his legal and political activities.

In 1850, Chapman was elected a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850–1851, a pivotal gathering that addressed long-standing grievances of western Virginians over representation, suffrage, and taxation. His election to the convention reflected his continued prominence in state politics and his role in the movement to reform Virginia’s antebellum political structure. Following the convention, he again served in the Virginia House of Delegates, returning to that body from 1857 to 1861. In this later legislative tenure, he continued to represent Monroe County and the surrounding region on the eve of the Civil War, as debates over secession and the future of the Union intensified.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Chapman accepted military responsibility in defense of Virginia. He became a brigadier general of the Virginia Militia and took the field with his command in 1861. He was in charge of the 19th Brigade, which consisted of six regiments drawn from Raleigh, Mercer, Fayette, Monroe, and Giles counties. In this capacity he was associated with the Confederate military structure and is listed among the acting Confederate generals of the American Civil War. His command responsibilities reflected both his regional influence and the mobilization of local forces in the early stages of the conflict.

After the war, Chapman returned to civilian life in what had by then become West Virginia, following the separation of the state from Virginia during the conflict. He resumed the practice of law in his hometown and also engaged in agricultural pursuits, maintaining his ties to the land and community in Monroe County. He lived out his later years in the region where he had spent most of his life and career, remaining a figure identified with the legal, political, and military history of western Virginia and West Virginia across the antebellum, Civil War, and Reconstruction eras.

Augustus Alexandria Chapman died on June 7, 1876, in Hinton, West Virginia. He was interred at Green Hill Cemetery in Union, West Virginia, near the community where he had been born, practiced law, and long served in public life.