Richard Eppes (1 May 1790–25 July 1832), militia general, was born in Sussex County and was the son of Thomas Eppes and Sally Winfield Eppes. On 8 July 1816 Eppes executed a marriage bond and two days later married Elizabeth Bailey Adkins, a widow. They had four sons and three daughters, of whom one daughter and two sons survived to adulthood. One of the wealthier planters in the county, Eppes owned more than 1,600 acres of land across sixteen parcels in Sussex County, including his home, Palestine, by the time of his death. In 1830 he reported to the census enumerator that he owned sixty-two enslaved persons, and the 1832 Sussex County personal property tax book shows him owning forty-two taxable enslaved persons over the age of twelve. A self-taught lawyer, Eppes, whose surname sometimes appears in records as Epps, qualified as a deputy for the Sussex County sheriff in 1814. He was a member of the Agricultural Society of Sussex County and of the United Agricultural Societies of Virginia.
Eppes represented Sussex County in the 1818–1819 session of the House of Delegates and served on the Committees of Propositions and Grievances and of Roads and Internal Navigation. After a one-session absence, he returned to the House for three consecutive sessions from 1820 through 1823 and served on the Committee of Claims during all three sessions. He was also a member of the Committee to Examine the Public Armory in the 1820–1821 and 1821–1822 sessions, and of the Committees of Finance, of Schools and Colleges, and on the Subject of Militia Laws in the 1822–1823 session. After a three-year hiatus, Eppes returned to the General Assembly again in 1826 and served in five consecutive sessions until 1831. He served on the Committees for Courts of Justice and on the Subject of Militia Laws in all five sessions and on the Committee of Roads and Internal Navigation in the 1828–1829 and 1829–1830 sessions. During his last session in 1830–1831, Eppes chaired the Committee of Propositions and Grievances. During the 1828–1829 session he served on a select committee appointed after South Carolina attempted to nullify an act of Congress that imposed a tariff on imported goods as a means to protect American manufacturers. The committee concluded that the Constitution of the United States did not grant Congress that authority.
Eppes's efforts to win election to higher office failed. He lost the campaign for the Senate of Virginia to represent Sussex, Surry, Southampton, Isle of Wight, Prince George, and Greensville Counties to William B. Goodwyn in 1822. Eppes also lost in his two efforts for election to the United States Congress from Virginia’s second district, losing to James Trezvant in 1825 by a 1,150 to 469 margin and to John Young Mason in 1831 by a 1,234 to 898 tally. Eppes consented to be nominated to serve in the Virginia Convention of 1829–1830, but he came in seventh out of fourteen candidates in the six-county district.
During the War of 1812, Eppes was lieutenant in a company of riflemen in the 15th Regiment of the state militia that saw brief service in the field in September 1814. Eppes won election as lieutenant colonel of the regiment and was commissioned in March 1818 but later resigned. He was voted first lieutenant of a Sussex County troop of cavalry in April 1820 and then captain in April 1822. Eppes resigned that commission in 1823, but later returned to the militia. On 14 December 1827 the Virginia General Assembly elected him brigadier general of the militia's 8th brigade.
On 21–23 August 1831 Nat Turner, an enslaved preacher, led a rebellion to free enslaved persons in Southampton County. His band, reaching fifty to sixty people at its peak, moved through the countryside and killed as many as sixty white people. When word of the rebellion reached Governor John Floyd in Richmond, he dispatched a troop of cavalry and light artillery from that city and infantry from Norfolk and Portsmouth to Southampton County. The governor placed Eppes in command of the troops and of the Southampton County militia that was already in the field. On 24 August Eppes informed the lieutenant colonel of the Isle of Wight militia that Turner's band was dispersed with fifteen men killed and twelve in jail. The next day, Eppes informed the governor that the troops in the field in Southampton County were enough to suppress the uprising. He later supplied Floyd with the names of many of the white casualties and by 1 September stated that about forty insurgents were then in the Southampton jail. Floyd ordered Eppes to disband most of his troops but to retain a sufficient guard in Southampton. Eppes's greatest problem was not quelling the insurrection but preventing white retaliation. On 28 August he declared martial law to put an end to violence against enslaved men and women who had taken no part in the rebellion in order to prevent further deaths or injuries that deprived white enslavers of their property.
During his time in the field, Eppes suffered from poor health. Between his last report to the adjutant general of Virginia on the service of troops dated 8 November and the governor's message to the General Assembly on 6 December Eppes resigned his commission as general of the 8th Brigade. He represented Sussex County in the May 1832 national convention in Baltimore that nominated Martin Van Buren for vice president to run with incumbent president Andrew Jackson in that year's election. Richard Eppes wrote his will on 23 July 1832, explaining that he was "suffering from a violent disease that may prove fatal." His words proved prophetic as he died two days later at his home. He was most likely buried at Palestine.
Sources Consulted: Birth, marriage, and death dates in Eppes family Bible record, 1788–1844, Accession 34047, Bible Records Collection, Library of Virginia (LVA); Sussex Co. Marriage Bond and Sussex Co. Register of Marriages; Virginia General Assembly, House of Delegates, Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1826–1827 sess., 32 (election as general); Report of the Select Committee on the Resolutions of Georgia and South Carolina, bound with Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Begun and Held at the Capitol, in the City of Richmond . . ., 1828–1829 sess.; Office of the Governor, Militia Commission Papers (1877–1858), Record Group 3, LVA; letter to adjutant general, 8 Nov. 1831, Records of the House of Delegates, Speaker, Executive Communications, Record Group 79, Accession 36912, LVA; letters to and from Governor John Floyd and other documents, printed in Henry Irving Tragle, The Southampton Slave Revolt of 1831: A Compilation of Source Material (1971); Personal Property Tax Returns, Sussex Co., 1832, and Land Tax Returns, Sussex Co., 1832, Auditor of Public Accounts, Record Group 48, LVA; Sussex Co. Will Book L:445–446 (quotation on 445); Richmond Enquirer, 17 Jan. 1822, 15 Feb. 1827 (speech in House of Delegates), 2 June 1829, 13 Feb. 1830, 24 Feb. 1831, 16 Sept. 1831 (address to militia), 8 Dec. 1831 (resignation as general), 8 May 1832; Daily Richmond Whig, 25 Apr. 1829 (public letter); Alexandria Phenix Gazette, 2 Sept. 1831 (declaration of martial law); obituaries in Richmond Whig & Commercial Journal, 6 Aug. 1832, Richmond Enquirer, 7 Aug. (with incorrect death date), 17 Aug. 1832.