Early life Robert Lewis Dabney was born on March 5, 1820. He was the sixth child (third son) of Charles William Dabney (1786–1833) and Elizabeth Randolph Price Dabney, and a descendant of Cornelius Dabney, who settled in Virginia in the 17th century. His brother, Charles William Dabney (1809–1895) was the captain of Company C,
15th Virginia Infantry Regiment. Dabney graduated from
Hampden-Sydney College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1837, and received a master's degree from the
University of Virginia in 1842. He graduated from
Union Theological Seminary in 1846.
Career Dabney served as a
missionary in
Louisa County, Virginia, from 1846 to 1847 and
pastor at
Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church from 1847 to 1853, being also head master of a classical school for a portion of this time. He is considered a distinguished son of
Providence Presbyterian Church. It was at Tinkling Spring that he met Margaret Lavinia Morrison. They were married on March 28, 1848. They had six sons together, three of whom died in childhood from diphtheria (two in 1855, the other in 1862). From 1853 to 1859, he was professor of
ecclesiastical history and polity and from 1859 to 1869 adjunct professor of
systematic theology in Virginia's
Union Theological Seminary, where he later became full professor of systematics. Dabney – whose wife was a third cousin to Confederate General
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's wife – participated in the
American Civil War on the Confederate side. During the summer of 1861 he was chaplain of the
18th Virginia Infantry, and in the following year was invited by Jackson to be his chief of staff; he served with Jackson during the
Valley Campaign and the
Seven Days Battles. In 1867, he published
A Defense of Virginia, and Through Her, of the South, in Recent and Pending Contests Against the Sectional Party, an apologia for slavery. In 1868, he delivered "Ecclesiastical Relation of Negroes", a speech advocating for white supremacy in the church. In 1883, he was appointed professor of mental and
moral philosophy in the
University of Texas. By 1894, failing health compelled him to retire from active life, although he still lectured occasionally. He was co-pastor, with his brother-in-law B. M. Smith, of the Hampden-Sydney College Church 1858 to 1874, also serving Hampden-Sydney College in a professorial capacity on occasions of vacancies in its faculty. , c. 1860, designed by Dabney.
Architecture Dabney's designs for the
Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church and for two other churches in Virginia are credited with influencing church architecture in Virginia. Three works associated with Dabney are listed on the U.S.
National Register of Historic Places: Tinkling Spring Presbyterian Church;
Briery Church, in
Briery, Virginia; and
New Providence Presbyterian Church, near
Brownsburg, Virginia.
Death Dabney died on January 3, 1898, due to complications from an acute illness. ==Major works==