U. M. Rose

Uriah Milton Rose (March 5, 1834 – August 12, 1913) was an American lawyer [1]: 181  and Confederate sympathizer.

[1]: 176  "Approachable, affable, and kind,"[2] graceful and courteous,[3]: 18  he was called "the most scholarly lawyer in America"[4]: 676  and "one of the leading legal lights of the nation",[5] "a towering figure in the...life of Little Rock".

He loved his profession, and I heard him state only a year or two before he died, while attending the Arkansas Bar Association, that during his more than half a century experience in the practice of law he had never had a serious misunderstanding with a brother lawyer.

[10] As there was no school in Bradfordsville, he was taught by a tutor; he was studying Latin at age five and later remarked that he could not remember when he could not read.

[10] When this did not leave him time to study, he resigned and worked on a farm, as a field hand, for board and $5 a month.

[1]: 173 [8][9]: 10 When Rose was 17, lawyer Rutherford Harrison Roundtree, who met him when visiting the farm, hired him as a deputy county clerk, and gave him "a home in his house" in Lebanon, Kentucky.

[9]: 10  There, he "learned a great deal about legal forms" and attended court, hearing the locally-famous attorneys Ben Hardin and Joshua F.

It was while at Justice Robertson's home that Judge Rose met Henry Clay, Webster, and many other of the prominent men of the time.

[1] After graduating in 1853, in search of warmer weather, Rose, his new wife, and his brother-in-law William T. Gibbs moved to Batesville, Arkansas, in 1853.

"[1]: 175  ("He lived on the lot now [1935] occupied by a filling station just across the street from where the Crouch furniture store is now l[oca]ted.

[1]: 175 ) He took an oath to support the Confederacy, without which he could not have continued as a state judge;[1]: 176  when briefly captured by Union forces that occupied Batesville, he refused to swear allegiance to the Federal government.

[3]: 22  Rose, "along with all men who had the welfare of the state at heart",[3]: 23  "worked hard" to convince Arkansas voters not to ratify the Reconstruction Constitution.

[29] Rose died at his home at 620 West 3rd St., Little Rock, Arkansas, on August 12, 1913, as a consequence of a fall.

[12] [34][35] His son George was "known and honored not only as a most successful lawyer, but as a litterateur, art critic and scholar.

[37] Rose was the only delegate from Arkansas among the 75 lawyers who formed the American Bar Association in Saratoga Springs, New York in 1872.

In 1917, the state of Arkansas donated a marble statue of Rose to the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection.

[39][40] In 1944, a United States Liberty ship named the SS Uriah M. Rose was launched.