[1] Dr. Rust owned a farm as well as practiced medicine in Luray, Page County, Virginia both before and after the American Civil War.
[4] In November 1861, Dr. Rust went to Mount Jackson, still in Page County, and accepted a contract to become a physician at the Confederate Military hospital.
By September 1862, he received a promotion and transfer, becoming Acting Assistant Surgeon of the General Hospital at Lynchburg.
Dr. Rust took the required loyalty oath and was elected a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868, representing Page and Shenandoah Counties alongside attorney Moses Walton, a lifelong resident of the Shenandoah Valley.
[6] Both men aligned with the Conservative Party of Virginia, which sought to minimize penalties that the majority proposed to impose upon former Confederates.