George Carr Round

Following the conflict, Round returned to Connecticut and resumed his studies. He became a member of Alpha Delta Phi and Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated from Wesleyan University in 1865. Round then enrolled at Columbia Law School in New York City, and graduated.[5]

Following admission to the New York bar in 1868, Round practiced law for about a year with a New York firm before moving southward, expecting to visit relatives in North Carolina. He appreciated the Southern hospitality he had received despite being a Northern soldier, and wanted to help rebuild after the war's devastation. In particular, Round helped rebuild Manassas, Virginia, whose good railroad connections had led to the important First Battle of Bull Run (a.k.a. First Manassas) in July 1862 and Second Battle of Bull Run (a.k.a. Second Manassas) the following year, but its population had shrunk by half by the time Round arrived.[6] Round settled in Manassas, then married a Canadian woman who had also arrived with her parents, and they ultimately raised their own family as discussed below.[5] His parents and sister all moved to either to Manassas (where they were buried) or to Washington, D.C. (a short train ride away and from whose public schools the new Manassas public school discussed below bought some furnishings).[7]

In order to be re-admitted to the Union, Virginia needed to adopt a new state Constitution because the 1850 constitution explicitly permitted slavery. The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868 proposed a document, which was controversial because of its provisions which excluded former Confederates. Even Union authorities delayed the vote until mid-1869, and those controversial provisions were voted on separately and did not pass, unlike the document as a whole.

Round opened a law and real estate office in Manassas on New Year's Day, 1869.[8] The military government soon named him as Prince William County's commonwealth's attorney (prosecutor).[9] Following Virginia's adoption of a new constitution forbidding slavery and readmission to the union, that position again became elective. However, in 1870, Round lost the election to become the county's prosecutor to James F. Clark, who resigned circa 1872, and was succeeded by Charles E. Sinclair (who had served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly and would become a judge). Round also served on Manassas' first town council (1873), as the town clerk (from 1873 until 1873, when he was replaced by Robert C. Weir, who had been the town's first mayor and would serve intermittently for decades in various offices), and on the school board (1870–1912).[10][11] Round also held federal positions, first as postmaster, then as federal tax commissioner (1875–1881).[12]

The new Virginia constitution (adopted in mid-1869) established the state's first public school system, although funding would become a recurrent issue. By the year's close, Round established the county's first public school (for white children) in the rear room of the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church (with Miss Estelle Green as teacher). It expanded to a second room the following year as the new school board (with Round as one of 3 members) also hired George Bennett as principal and teacher.[13] In 1872, the new school board built the Ruffner building (named after Virginia's first superintendent of public instruction), which allowed the white school to leave the church. $300 of the money needed to construct a new building would come from the Peabody Education Fund, with the remaining $694.24 from local subscriptions as well as donations from other northerners; Quakers established the Brown school, a.k.a. Manassas Village Colored School in 1870. By 1900 the village had six schools for white children and four for black children.[14] As the town continued to grow, Round helped secure financing (including from Andrew Carnegie) for the Bennett building in 1909.

In 1874, Prince William County voters elected Round as their delegate to the Virginia General Assembly (a part-time position).[15] He succeeded lifetime resident (and delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868 but single-term Delegate) Benjamin F. Lewis (1816–1878), son of William Montgomery Lewis (1793–1867). Although (or because) Round proposed legislation to establish teacher training colleges across Virginia, he was not re-elected. Confederate veteran and farmer James R. Purcell succeeded him (again for one term).

Nonetheless, Round stayed in the area, and became a booster—planting shade trees along Manassas' streets, donating land to build the county courthouse in Manassas (after considerable controversy it moved for the fourth time westward, from centrally-located Brentsville, which lacked railroad access) and helped preserve historic Bel Air mansion. Round also donated land for sisters Fannie and Eugenia Osbourn to establish their higher school which became the Manassas Institute (the county's first high school) in 1906, two years before the state-mandated free public high school education. Round also helped Manassas host the 8th district teacher training college. It added courses in agriculture, domestic science, teacher training and even commerce in 1915 similar to those offered African American children at the private Manassas Industrial School for Colored Youth founded by Jennie Dean two decades earlier (on whose board Round also sat, and served as its legal advisor). The "Ruffner School and Manassas High School" Building would close in 1926, when overcrowding threatened its state accreditation so a new brick Osbourn High School was built and named after the early teachers.[16] Round also served as president of the Virginia School Trustee Association in 1906, and helped establish an agricultural extension service for Prince William county.[17][18] He also helped establish the local Manasseh Lodge of Masons in 1875, and served as its first secretary.

After the war Round became involved in veterans activities, eventually becoming president of the U.S. Signal Corps Association. Round was also active in veterans' activities to reconcile with former Confederates. He collaborated with former Confederate officer Edmund Berkeley (who also once represented Prince William as delegate in the Virginia General Assembly of 1891–1892) as well as Dr. Henry M. Clarkson and bankers Westwood Hutchison and G. Raymond Ratcliffe. Round spent years trying to create a national park around the monuments being erected on the Manassas battlefield, while maintaining much of the farmland (for productive agricultural use also increased historical accuracy). Round helped secure U.S. Army maneuvers in the area in 1905, and also worked to re-enact both the First Battle of Manassas and Second Battle of Manassas, although both were Union defeats. Congressman John F. Rixey, a Virginia Confederate veteran, sponsored a bill to create a study commission concerning the battlefield park but died unexpectedly in 1907. Round and Berkeley then conceived and organized the Manassas Peace Jubilee, also known as the "Reunion of the Blue and the Gray," which culminated on June 21, 1911, with a gun-free battle re-enactment and speeches by U.S. President William Howard Taft and Virginia Governor (and Confederate veteran) William Hodges Mann. Rixey's successor Charles Carlin (son of a Confederate veteran) secured passage of the battlefield park investigative commission bill in 1912, but by the time the three commissioners recommended purchase, World War I had begun.[19]