US Senator. He created a power Democratic political machine in Virginia that became the state’s dominating political force, and also became a dominating force in the United States Senate. Born in Scottsville, Virginia, he began attending the Virginia Military Institute in 1864 while the Civil War was raging. He missed the May 1864 Battle of New Market because of illness when his fellow cadets joined in fighting the Union army, but would serve in subsequent VMI cadet participation in fighting around Lynchburg and in the defense of Richmond, Virginia. After the end of the war he attended the University of Virginia for two years, but left due to family hardship. He then read law and was admitted to the Virginia State Bar Association. He eventually became attorney for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, which introduced him to Democratic politics. He became a protégé of United States Congressman and Senator John S. Barbour, who was also a powerful railroad president. Thomas Staples Martin used his power as a railroad executive to be an active but behind-the-scenes actor in the Virginia Democatic party’s successful reclamation of the state’s legislature from the coalition of Republicans and the short-lived Readjuster party, which held sway during Reconstruction. When Senator Barbour died in office in 1892, Thomas S. Martin, having lined up great support due to his influence from the railroad and as a Democrat operative under Barbour, defeated incumbent Virginia Governor and former Civil War Confederate Army General Fitzhugh Lee for the seat, a move that shocked many not familiar with Virginia politics. Assuming his seat in 1893, he would serve the next twenty-six years as a Democratic Senator from Virginia to the United States Senate until he himself died while in office. He continued to build on the Democratic successes started by Senator Barbour, eventually wielding such influence that most political decisions over the next two decades had his personal stamp on then. He legislated with pragmatism and a sense of moderateness, often able to forge coalitions for political objectives. He was an anti-progressive, and like many politicians in the United States at the time worked to thwart the enfranchisement of African-Americans. He threw his opposition against Woodrow Wilson for President, and when Wilson, who ran and a Progressive Democrat, was elected in 1912, Thomas Staple Martin eventually and begrudgingly supported aspects of President Wilson’s agenda. I 1917 he became Senate Majority Leader and President Pro Tem of the Senate, and was helped get legislation through Congress when the United States entered World War I. In 1918 he retained the leadership of the Democratic Party in the Senate after the Republicans became the majority. A year and a half later he died at this home in Charlottesville, Virginia, at age 72. He was the second-to-last veteran of the Confederate Army to serve in the United States Senate, only being passed by Colorado Senator Charles Spalding Thomas. Thomas Staples Martin’s political machine in Virginia, called the “Martin Organization” was continued after his death by Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr. (and eventually was called the “Byrd Organization”), and controlled Virginia politics until the civil rights upheavals of the 1960s ousted the long-time machine.