Born on a farm near Bristol, Virginia in Washington County, Rhea attended rural and private schools.
Rhea was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1902 to the Fifty-eighth Congress, losing to the Republican Campbell Slemp, and resumed the practice of law in Bristol, Virginia.
He moved to Richmond, Virginia, when appointed a member of the State Corporation Commission in 1908 and served until 1925.
Rhea made his home in Richmond across the street from the Robert E. Lee camp for confederate veterans; the house built in 1922 on Grove Avenue is now the "Museum District Bed and Breakfast," near the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress