University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XIII

ASSASSINATION OF PROFESSOR DAVIS

The annual celebration of the 12th of November,
the date on which the military corps reached the
climax in its defiance of the faculty and met the supreme
exercise of University authority with rioting,
was a display of bad judgment and ended in tragedy.
Chairman Davis, whose hand had drawn the paper
under which the rebels were readmitted to the benefits
of the University, was shot down in front of his
home at about 10 o'clock on Thursday evening, November
12, 1840, and died of the wound on the following
Saturday.

Professor Davis lived in Pavilion X, at the southern
end of East Lawn. He was disturbed by the
firing of pistols, and left his office and procuring his
hat in the hall went out on the Lawn. At the door
he paused to inquire of one of his servants, a colored
boy of thirteen, who had been watching the masqueraders
as they moved about the Lawn, where the
disorderly students were at that moment. They had
gone toward the Rotunda, and Dr. Davis passed
into the dark, and the colored boy saw no more of
him for some time. After fifteen or twenty minutes
the boy, still standing in the shadow near the Professor's

door, saw a flash and heard a report of a
pistol a few feet beyond the large columns of the
portico under which he was standing. The next
moment a masked figure ran by him. The boy stood
for a minute awaiting the next step in the progress
of the disorder; but he became puzzled as to the
whereabouts of his master, and went cautiously out
of the circle of dim light into the darkness on the
Lawn. A dark object on the ground caught his attention,
and a low groan made him afraid. He
knew the figure on the ground was that of his master,
lying prone on his face. "Can you get up, sir?"
"No, I cannot get up. Go in the house and tell them
I am shot."

Boy-like he went straight to his mother in the
kitchen with the terrible news. With rare good
sense, she sent him across the Lawn to tell Mrs
Tucker—the wife of the professor of moral philosophy—to
come over before she told Mrs. Davis.
Bidding Mr. Tucker to follow, that lady hastened
to Mrs. Davis.

In the mean time some students had carried Professor
Davis into his house, and summoned a physician.
Dr. James L. Cabell, a colleague, responded.
The young men, eager to apprehend the assassin,
asked the stricken man if he knew who shot him.
He said he knew perfectly well, but refused to give
his name. All of the University was at the door
awaiting, in feverish excitement, the verdict of the
surgeons. This seemed favorable, but Mrs. Davis
utterly rejected the honest assurances of Dr. Howard
that her husband would be well again in a short
time. Dr. Cabell was rather reserved in the expression
of an opinion.

Dr. Robert Lewis Dabney, the philosopher and

theologian, was a student at the University, and was
one of those who stood at the door while the doctors
were probing for the bullet. He wrote of the affair
to his brother the following day: "There were only
two rioters seen," he said, "who had been firing
blank cartridges about the doors of the professors,
masked and disguised. The two passed freely
within a few feet of the peaceful students, completely
concealed by their disguises, when one of the
students told them to take care, as Mr. Davis was on
the watch, near his house. One of the two immediately
walked down that way, loading his pistol;
but, in addition to the former charge of powder, he
was seen to put in a ball, ramming it down against
the wall of the house as he went. Nobody at that
time, however, suspected anything, or felt himself
authorized to interfere. A few moments after another
report was heard, and the masked figure was
seen making off across the Lawn. Some of the students
heard groans, and going out, found Mr. Davis
down and unable to rise. He said that he had gone
out to preserve order; that he saw the masked figure,
attempted to take hold of him and take off the
mask, but that he dodged him, retreated a few yards,
and then after he (Mr. Davis) had ceased to pursue,
turned and fired. * * * The excitement among
the students was so great, and everybody was so
horrorstruck, that no immediate steps were taken to
secure the criminal. The action was so atrocious
that it is impossible to conceive a motive, and still
the circumstances are such that we cannot believe it
to have been accidental, which we would gladly do
if we could."

Suspicion fell upon Simms so strongly that the
students sent a committee in search of him. He

was found, and admitted that he had been one of
the rioters, but denied any share in the assault on
Professor Davis, and refused to give any information
whatever as to the disguises or purposes of
his associates in the disorder. The committee had
no legal authority over the person of the suspect,
and could only exact a promise that he would not
leave the University. He absconded, nevertheless,
pursued by students and the civil authorities.

The next day lectures were suspended. Early
on that morning the students in mass meeting
offered to cooperate with the county authorities
in the capture of the fugitive suspect, and in any
undertaking the object of which was the arrest
and conviction of the criminal. In the mean time,
another student, a Southerner named Kincaid,
had fallen under suspicion, and a warrant for his
arrest was issued upon the testimony of Robert L.
Dabney. There was no officer at hand to serve
it, all being in pursuit of Simms, and young Dabney
and another student were deputized. It was
expected that the arrest would be opposed with
violence, but Kincaid made no resistance.

The students scoured the country for Simms,
resolved, as they said, to have him if he was to
be found. He was found two or three miles in the
country, concealed in a grove of pines, and eventually
committed to jail. Kincaid was bailed
under a bond for $5,000 for his appearance at the
trial. The Commonwealth's attorney, Valentine
W. Southall, tried to bring the case to a speedy
hearing, but the prisoner's lawyers, Messrs.
Leigh, Lyons, and Gilmer, on some plea, secured
a continuance at the May term of the Circuit
Court. Then followed an effort to procure the

release of the accused on bail, but the motion was
firmly denied by Judge Lucas Thompson. The
attorneys were more successful in the general
court, where medical testimony was produced to
show the prisoner's precarious state of health.
The physicians examined were Drs. James L.
Jones, Carter, and Massie. Bail was allowed in
the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, Reuben
Grigsby and B. F. Porter of Rockbridge, and William
Porter of Orange, becoming surety.

The physical condition of the prisoner was certainly
very bad. When liberated he started on his
long journey home on a bed placed in a stage,
which had been chartered for the purpose. He
never appeared for trial and his large bond was
forfeited. The report that he committed suicide
within a year is probably true, but another story
is to the effect that he went to Texas to evade
trial, and died there soon after.

One would think that consequences so terrible
would have discouraged rowdyism for a long time
to come. But there was still a persistent element.
Late in the year 1844 a band of this class of the
students was organized to create noise and disorder,
and the official records bear testimony to
their success. With horns and other instruments
of torture, and in disguise, they paraded the Lawn
and other parts of the precincts at a late hour of
the night, making rest impossible and waking
hours hideous.

These parades took place at intervals of about
ten days, and although subversive of the peace
and good order of the University were not attended
by any outrages on private dwellings or

public property. This company, known as "The
First Band," contained a number of otherwise exemplary
students who were probably to be credited
with its informal disbandment. Another band
was organized. Unlike all preceding "riots,"
there was no pretense that it was caused by a
grievance, and the only purpose in view, according
to testimony, was to force the closing of the
session some months before the usual time for
its termination. But on the 24th of February
three students were suspended from the University
for disorderly conduct at one of the hotels,
and immediately the "band" paraded—it had its
pretext at last. The disorder went to the extreme
length of attacks on the hotel and the home of
Chairman Rogers, in the course of which a door
and windows were broken. These emeutes were
of almost nightly occurrence. On one occasion
stones and other missiles were thrown against the
parlor window of a professor's dwelling while
ladies were sitting in the room; on another some
rioter tapped upon the shutters of a window at
Professor Robert E. Rogers's, frightening Mrs.
Rogers. The professor was out at the time and
on his return found his wife very much agitated.
The party of "serenaders" were returning and
Professor Rogers took his station behind one of
the columns in the alcove in front of his house—
Pavilion VIII. As the "musicians" passed on,
making their infernal din, one of the band approached
the door and was about placing his foot
on the mat when the Professor seized him by the
cloak, and allowing him a little rope, actually
picked him up in the presence of the whole crowd
and carried him into the parlor, where the full
blaze of the lamp disclosed who he was[1] . Pistol
firing was indulged in by disguised students, while
others galloped through the alleys and arcades
of the University on horses procured, in some instances,
by breaking into private stables in the
night-time. The license became more unrestrained,
dwellings were attacked, windows broken, and the
doors of the Rotunda forced.

The faculty then appealed to the civil authorities,
and placed the public property under their
protection. The court of justices and a jury convened
at the University April 21, 1845, and directed
the sheriff to place a guard of armed citizens
at the Rotunda, where it remained two nights.
When the disorderly students learned of the proposed
intervention of the civil authorities they
held a mass meeting—which was not fully attended—and
resolved to evade the court or resist it
as far as possible. The warlike spirit was not offensively
exigent at any time after the constables appeared
on the scene. The turmoil of months came
to a peaceful end—except for those participants
against whom the faculty afterward found conclusive
evidence. That they were dealt with quite
firmly the faculty minutes—covered over with sentences
of suspension, dismission, reprimand, and admonition—afford
overwhelming evidence.

In January, 1846, the legislature sent a committee
to the University to investigate, and the
Visitors convened at the same time. The legislators
submitted a series of questions in regard to
the possibility of smaller compensation for the
professors, the reduction of the number of employees,

the wisdom of admitting some students
from Virginia free of tuition, and the causes of
the recent defiance of authority on the part of
many students. The answer of the Visitors to
the inquiry as to the probable causes of the outbreaks
was "that the riots which occurred in April
last were mainly attributable to the insubordination
of the parties implicated, urged on by disorderly
and dissipated students who remained in
the neighborhood after having been dismissed
from the University, and who themselves were
believed to have committed the greater part of
the injury done to the buildings, as appears by evidence
collected by the court of justices which met
to inquire into said riots."

But this answer did not go far enough, in the
opinion of William C. Rives,[2] one of the Visitors,
who tried to have the following substituted:

"In answer to the fifth inquiry of the committee,
to wit, `Whether the frequent breaches of discipline
by the students of the University, and especially
the late riots, are attributable to the insubordination
of the students, a defect in the system
of regulation, or the inability of the authorities of
the University to enforce them'—the Board of
Visitors are of opinion that the breaches of discipline,
and especially the late riots, alluded to by
the committee, are attributable to the combined
operation of all the causes indicated in the above
inquiry. In the origin and progress of the late
riots, a very reprehensible spirit of insubordination
was manifested on the part of a certain number
of students; but the Board of Visitors feel
constrained, in the impartiality of the high office

with which they are charged, to state that in their
judgment some unfortunate errors, to say the
least, were committed by the executive authority
of the University in the manner of proceeding in
regard to these disturbances, which contributed
both to prolong and to aggravate them, and finally
to involve in the censures and penalties inflicted
by the faculty many young men of unexceptionable
general deportment and guiltless of any participation
in the disorderly occurrences complained
of. But the Board of Visitors, believing
that the breaches of discipline referred to by the
committee are, in great part, to be traced to a
deeper and more lasting source in a fundamental
defect in the government of the University, are
of opinion that a new organization of its authorities
is greatly to be desired, which would assign
to the executive administration a permanent and
responsible head in a president, charged with the
moral discipline, supervision and general management
of the University, standing in loco parentis
to the students and having his own character, by
singleness and elevation of his position, indissolubly
identified with the character and good order
of the institution. Such an organization the Visitors
are persuaded would furnish by far the best,
if not the only, remedy for the breaches of discipline
which have hitherto occurred in the University;
and as some doubts have been expressed
as to the competency of the Board of Visitors of
their own authority to institute the proposed
change, they strongly recommend that provision
be made for it by law."

This substitute, which the Visitors rejected,
sought the establishment of a presidency because,

in the opinion of its author, the administrative
problems of the institution could not be overcome
otherwise. Twenty years elapsed before it was
again considered—and then other motives were
responsible.

Another story goes with this turbulent decade.
A strolling menagerie was exhibiting in Charlottesville
near Maplewood Cemetery. Many
students attended, and among them was John A.
Glover, of Demopolis, Alabama, who was leaning
against the barrier ropes stretched around some
cages in which a showman was performing with
a lion. Perhaps the students, as was characteristic
of them sixty years ago, were somewhat disorderly,
and certainly they had been requested to
observe perfect order during the act then in progress,
in order to reduce the danger to a minimum.
At a critical moment Glover tossed a lighted cigar
at the animal. The outraged showman sprang
from the cage and felled Glover with a tent pin.
The injured man was taken to the Eagle Hotel
(now the Colonial), where he died in two or three
days (April 11, 1846). He was buried in the University
Cemetery, and his grave is marked by a
monument erected by his fellow students.

Another incident may close this chapter on the
wild days of the University. John Singleton
Mosby, afterwards distinguished as the leader of
the famous band of fighters in the battles of the
Confederacy known as Mosby's Rangers, was the
chief actor in an affair which narrowly escaped
tragic consequences. In an altercation in March,
1853, with the son of George W. Turpin, who kept
the Monticello Hotel, Mosby, then a youth of
twenty, used his pistol with such effect that young

Turpin was dangerously wounded. Mosby was arrested,
prosecuted by the late William J. Robertson,
fined $500, and sentenced to jail for a year. The
young prisoner, using his attorney's books, studied
law diligently, and a year after his release was admitted
to the Albemarle bar, but he soon removed to
Abingdon.