Our History: Featured Alumni/ae: Flood, Henry D., 1886

Congressman from Virginia

Born in Eldon in Appomattox County, Virginia on September 2, 1865, Henry De La Warr Flood attended the public schools in Appomattox and Richmond, Virginia. He received his undergraduate degree from Washington and Lee University and his law degree from the University of Virginia. He was admitted to the bar in 1886 and commenced practice in Appomattox, Virginia.

Flood served as a Delegate to the Virginia House of Delegates from 1887 to 1891. He served as member of the Senate of Virginia from 1891 to 1903 and was a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1901. Flood was elected Commonwealth's Attorney for Appomattox County in 1891, 1895, and 1899. He was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Fifty-fifth Congress. Flood was elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-seventh and to the ten succeeding Congresses and served until his death (March 4, 1901-December 8, 1921).

He served as chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (Sixty-second through Sixty-fifth Congresses), Committee on Territories (Sixty-second Congress). In 1911, he was responsible for the Flood amendment to the enabling act for New Mexico statehood, which provided for a simple majority to ratify amendments to the New Mexico Constitution. In 1917, he helped to bring the United States into World War I as the author of the resolutions declaring a state of war to exist between the United States and Germany and Austria-Hungary. He died on December 8, 1921, in Washington, D.C. He was interred in a mausoleum on the courthouse green at Appomattox, Virginia. His brother was U.S. Representative Joel West Flood and his nephew was U.S. Senator Harry Flood Byrd.