The family lived in Lynchburg's best-known mansion, Point of Honor until 1870, and Dr. Owen Sr. operated the Vista Acres plantation in Campbell County.
During the American Civil War, Robert Latham Owen accepted Confederate rifles to defend the railroad, which were delivered by Gen. Thomas Stonewall Jackson.
Owen also criticized the chaotic military demands on his railroad's rolling stock, which was a crucial link to the salt in Saltville, Virginia, as well as Tennessee, among other routes.
Chandler, Edgar Allen, as well as former provost marshal and now Secretary of War John Schofield and the Committee of Nine succeeded in convincing newly elected President Ulysses Grant to separate the ratification votes on the two controversial anti-Confederate clauses from that concerning the proposed new Constitution (which passed by an overwhelming margin even as those two clauses were defeated).
In the same election, Robert Latham Owen Sr. ran for (and won) a state senate seat, representing Campbell County and Lynchburg.
His friend Thomas J. Kirkpatrick, Lynchburg's new school superintendent and a Confederate veteran, was elected to succeed Owen in the Virginia Senate on December 6, 1871.
Owen died unexpectedly in Norfolk on June 2, 1873,[7] leaving his wife in financial straits and with two young boys to raise.