George Carr Round (September 14, 1839 – November 5, 1918) was a Union soldier (and later officer) who settled in Prince William County, Virginia after the American Civil War.
As the Civil War began, Round interrupted his studies (which had included voluntary military drills) to enlist in the First Connecticut Artillery, although he later noted that the favorite uncle (after whom he had been named) had long been a teacher in Georgia and the Carolinas, and his boys had volunteered for Confederate service much as George Round and his brother had volunteered for the Union Army.
Round used colorful signal rockets to transmit the message "On earth peace, good will toward men" upon hearing confirmation of the war's end.
In particular, Round helped rebuild Manassas, Virginia, whose good railroad connections had led to the important First Battle of Bull Run (a.k.a.
However, in 1870, Round lost the election to become the county's prosecutor to James F. Clark, who resigned circa 1872, and was succeeded by Charles E. Sinclair (who had served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly and would become a judge).
By the year's close, Round established the county's first public school (for white children) in the rear room of the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church (with Miss Estelle Green as teacher).
$300 of the money needed to construct a new building would come from the Peabody Education Fund, with the remaining $694.24 from local subscriptions as well as donations from other northerners; Quakers established the Brown school, a.k.a.
In 1874, Prince William County voters elected Round as their delegate to the Virginia General Assembly (a part-time position).
Nonetheless, Round stayed in the area, and became a booster—planting shade trees along Manassas' streets, donating land to build the county courthouse in Manassas (after considerable controversy it moved for the fourth time westward, from centrally-located Brentsville, which lacked railroad access) and helped preserve historic Bel Air mansion.
It added courses in agriculture, domestic science, teacher training and even commerce in 1915 similar to those offered African American children at the private Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth founded by Jennie Dean two decades earlier (on whose board Round also sat, and served as its legal advisor).
[16] Round also served as president of the Virginia School Trustee Association in 1906, and helped establish an agricultural extension service for Prince William county.
He collaborated with former Confederate officer Edmund Berkeley (who also once represented Prince William as delegate in the Virginia General Assembly of 1891–1892) as well as Dr. Henry M. Clarkson and bankers Westwood Hutchison and G. Raymond Ratcliffe.
Round spent years trying to create a national park around the monuments being erected on the Manassas battlefield, while maintaining much of the farmland (for productive agricultural use also increased historical accuracy).
Congressman John F. Rixey, a Virginia Confederate veteran, sponsored a bill to create a study commission concerning the battlefield park but died unexpectedly in 1907.
Rixey's successor Charles Carlin (son of a Confederate veteran) secured passage of the battlefield park investigative commission bill in 1912, but by the time the three commissioners recommended purchase, World War I had begun.