Excerpt from A Sketch of the Life and Service of General William Ruffin Cox: Including the Address of Hon. Frank S. Spruill at the Presentation of Portrait of General William Ruffin Cox to the State of North Carolina His earliest training was at Vine Hill Academy, at Scot land Neck. After his removal to Tennessee, he attended a pre paratory school near Nashville, and at the early age of fifteen, entered Franklin College, where he graduated with distinction; then studied law at Lebanon College, and came to the Bar in 1852 in the City of Nashville. There he formed a partnership with a well known lawyer, John G. Ferguson, and they practised successfully together until 1857, when he married, returned to North Carolina, and with much zeal, began to cultivate his lands in Edgecombe County. His ability and energy would not be confined to the acres of his large estate, and two years later he went to Raleigh to prae tice law, entered with much interest into the political and eco nomic life of the State, and at the same time superintended his plantation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.