Waller Redd Staples

Waller Redd Staples (February 24, 1826 – August 21, 1897) was a Virginia lawyer and politician who was briefly a member of the Virginia General Assembly before the American Civil War, became a Congressman serving the Confederate States of America during the war, and became a law professor at Washington and Lee University and justice of the Virginia Court of Appeals.

Staples was born in Patrick County, Virginia. He attended the University of North Carolina for two years and then entered the College of William and Mary from which he graduated in 1845.

After graduation and admission to the Virginia bar, Staples moved to Montgomery County, Virginia to begin the practice of law.

In 1854–1855, Staples represented Montgomery County in the Virginia House of Delegates as a Whig. In the latter year, he ran for the United States House of Representatives in the 12th district as a Know Nothing, but lost to the Democratic incumbent, Henry A. Edmundson.

After Virginia's secession from the Union and acceptance into the Confederate States, Staples was named a delegate to the Provisional Confederate States Congress. He was elected to the First and Second Confederate Congresses, serving in the Confederate House of Representatives from 1862 to the end of the war. When it ended, he resumed his law practice in Montgomery County.

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