William B. Rodman

Rodman graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1836 and studied law under Judge William Gaston.

[1] He helped revise the state's legal code in 1854, along with Bartholomew F. Moore.

During the American Civil War, he commanded Confederate troops and served as a military judge for the Army of Northern Virginia.

After the war he resumed the practice of law in Washington, North Carolina, and, though politically Independent, he supported the Republican Party.

He took a leading role at the 1868 state constitutional convention, where he served as chairman of the judiciary committee and unsuccessfully argued that judges should not be elected by the people.