Confederatevets.com

Robert Lafayette Campbell, who died recently at his home, in Augusta, Ga., was born on February 4, 1845, in Abbeville district, now Greenwood County, S. C. He was the only son of Thomas M. Campbell and Ethelda Loveless. His parents moved to Georgia when he was about a year old, living in DeKalb County for several years and afterwards removing to Gainesville, Ga. From Gainesville Robert Campbell, a lad of eighteen, marched away to join the army of the Confederacy, serving from 1863 to the close in Howell's Battery, Georgia Volunteers, Martin's Battalion, Smith's Regiment of Artillery. One of his messmates said of him: "Robert Campbell is one of the few men I know who carried his religion into the army, lived it there, brought it home with him, and has lived it ever since."

At the close of the war Comrade Campbell returned to Gainesville and prepared himself for Emory College, graduating in 1872. For four years he engaged in educational work and was later admitted in full connection to the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1873 he was married to Mary Eugenia Mattox, daughter of Dr. Elijah Mattox, of Decatur, Ga. In 1888 he was appointed by the Conference to Paine College, at Augusta. It required a brave heart to enter upon this work, but the soldier who fought valiantly under the Stars and Bars responded to the call of the Church, and for thirty-two years, with true missionary spirit, he gave himself to training the negro youth of the South.

The Augusta Chronical says of him: "Dr. Campbell from the beginning gave evidence of his peculiar fitness for this important work. He possessed an insight, a patience, and intelligent sympathy that has given him the confidence of all of his pupils and of the entire negro population of Augusta. No one can ever say how far-reaching for good hie influence has been."

Surviving him are his wife, four sons, and two daughters.