University of Virginia Library

XXXVIII. Administrative Officers

Socrates Maupin, who had been appointed for the
first time chairman of the Faculty in 1854, remained in
this office without interruption until 1870, when he was
killed on the occasion of an accident to the carriage in
which he was driving. His successor was Charles S.
Venable, who was the incumbent during the three sessions
terminating with 1872–73, and afterwards during
the two sessions closing with 1887–88. Professor
Harrison, of the School of Medicine, performed the
duties of the position during the interval that began
with 1873 and ended with 1886. Venable was followed
at the close of his last incumbency by William M. Thornton,
who was chairman during the period that extended
from 1888 to 1896 inclusive.[38] Paul B. Barringer succeeded
Thornton in 1896, and occupied the office during
seven sessions. James M. Page was appointed in 1903,
and, in 1904, retired on the establishment of the presidency.

The Board of Visitors, during the Seventh Period,
1865–95, could not count among its numerous members
as many figures of varied distinction as it had done before
the passing of the old system in consequence of the
failure of the Confederacy. During the first two years

that followed that failure, there was a politic disposition
to choose men whose sympathies were not antagonistic
to the spirit of the new course of events. Such
were Alexander Rives and Robert W. Hughes, both of
whom were in time to accept high judicial office from
a Republican administration. Samuel Lewis, of Rockingham
county, was of the same political complexion.
By 1870, the appointment had again come to be restricted
to men thoroughly representative of the dominant sentiment
of the Southern communities to which they belonged.
Such were Thomas L. Preston, a former rector
and a noble exemplar in manners, appearance, and character
of Virginia in its social prime; Richard H. Baker,
of Norfolk, a lawyer of conspicuous professional learning
and broad literary culture; Thomas Smith, son of the
sturdy war governor of that name, and himself a man
of uncommon vigor of character, and afterwards a Federal
judge of distinction; Macajah Woods, long one of
the most competent prosecuting attorneys in the State;
Isaac H. Carrington, provost-marshal during the Confederacy
and a lawyer of great ability afterwards; Alexander
H. H. Stuart, whose fame was national; Holmes
Conrad, destined to become solicitor-general of the
United States; John Goode, Jr., during many years an
eloquent and influential member of Congress, and subsequently
president of the last constitutional convention
of Virginia; John L. Marye, lieutenant-governor of the
State; Thomas S. Bocock, Speaker of the Confederate
Congress; W. H. Payne, a brilliant cavalry officer during
the war, and a lawyer of reputation afterwards;
Edward C. Venable, member of Congress; W. Gordon
McCabe, the foremost headmaster of Virginia in his
prime; Mason Gordon, son of General William Fitzhugh
Gordon, and the inheritor of a large share of his
father's talents and of all his genial qualities; Joseph
Bryan, a citizen of extraordinary influence in more than
one walk in life; Camm Patteson, a political war-horse
in the days when the term signified a disinterested devotion
to the public service; Basil B. Gordon, cut off by a
premature death from the full fruition of a political career
that had proved successful in spite of serious
physical handicaps; Armistead C. Gordon, a lawyer of
distinction, who, in the midst of professional engagements,
had snatched the opportunity to write volumes of
biography, fiction, and verse of a high order of merit;
John S. Wise, brilliant and erratic, a lawyer, politician,
and author of remarkable powers; William Lamb, a
brave Confederate soldier, who had won an enduring
name as the defender of Fort Fisher; W. C. N. Randolph,
a great-grandson of Jefferson, and a physician of excellent
standing; William H. Bolling, a descendant of Pocahontas
and a respected county magistrate; Thomas S.
Martin, a senator of the United States; and John Paul,
afterwards a judge on the Federal bench.

At least three of the Visitors mentioned in this discursive
list,—Wise, Paul, and Lamb,—were members
of the Readjuster Party, which was looked upon with
keen disfavor by the conservative section of the Commonwealth.
They had been appointed, along with five
others of obscure antecedents, by a Readjuster Governor
in May, 1882. This radical Board, with several
changes, remained in office until the termination of the
session of 1885–86. It was clearly understood that it
was selected largely for a particular purpose: the removal
of certain officers of the University, who were
obnoxious to the new party. Major Green Peyton, a
gallant soldier, an outspoken man, and a most faithful
and competent official, was known to have been marked

off for the visitorial guillotine; and the decapitating blade
was not long in falling. Several of his fellow officials
were dropped along with himself to make room for
partisan satellites.

After this work of indiscriminate pruning had been
completed under the influence of sordid politics, in general,
and at the special dictation, it was said at the time,
of two aggressive Readjusters, who were pulling the secret
strings from the outside, this revolutionary Board
seems to have acted conscientiously and sensibly in the
discharge of their duties. This was acknowledged by
the Faculty,—although still smarting under the sting inflicted
by the unjustifiable knifing of tried officers of the
institution. "They are laboring earnestly for us," said
Professor Stephen O. Southall, "and it is only by their
favor that we hope for favor from their political associates."
Fortunately for the prosperity and the reputation
of the University,—which had suffered a severe
wrench by being dragged into the theatre of rank partisanship,
—a thoroughly conservative and representative
body of Virginians succeeded, at the end of a few years,
this promiscuous and distinctly hybrid board. During the
latter's existence, the Readjusters had furnished three of
the ten incumbents of the rectorship during the Seventh
Period, 1865–95. These three were Lamb, Elliot and
W. R. Ruffin. The eight additional ones were Alexander
Rives, 1865–66; B. Johnson Barbour, 1866–72; R.
G. H. Kean, 1872–75; A. H. H. Stuart, 1875–
1882; J. L. Marye, 1887–89; and W. C. N. Randolph,
1889–95.[39]

The most interesting because the most accomplished
and the most many-sided of all these distinguished men

was B. Johnson Barbour. When, in 1870, he, with some
feeling, intimated his intention of resigning the rectorship,
Professor Venable hastened to write to him as
follows: "You have been able, in these trying five
years, to do an amount of good for Virginia which it
has fallen to the lot of few of her sons to accomplish,
and you have been sustained by sound public opinion in
the Faculty and in the State. I say, 'sustained,' but
you have been more than sustained, for what has been
done has been applauded in every quarter."

There was reason, at this time, to suspect that some
plan was on foot to shift the government of the University
almost entirely to the hands of the Faculty. The
most energetic advocate of this revolutionary change
was Professor Minor. We have, in our first volume,
quoted the opinion which he once expressed that a mistake
had been made in the original organization of the
institution in not placing that body on the same platform
of authority as the Board of Visitors. "The new
holds of power which Professor Minor has been constantly
taking for himself and colleagues," Venable
wrote Barbour in February, 1870, "have been mainly
possible by the want of permanence in the rector's office.
I have known something of the internal affairs and regulations
of the University of Virginia since 1857, and I
know that there is now a stronger body of professors,—
devoted unselfishly to promote its interests, who do not
partake of this clamor against the Visitors, and who
are anxious to work shoulder to shoulder with them in
the common cause,—than at any time in the period
from 1857 to 1870. I do not believe that there are
more than three professors who have any heart in this
scheme of Minor's." Barbour, upheld by so strong and
determined an arm, refused to abridge, either actively

or passively, the power which had been vested in him
and his associates of the Board.

But his relations with the members of the Faculty
were not confined to points of dry or controversial official
business. He wrote learned and delightful letters to
Professor Peters on the genius or the syntax of such
classics as Horace, Sallust, and Plautus. With Holmes,
he corresponded, with the most delicate critical acumen,
on the spirit and structure of the poems of Dryden and
Pope; and with Mallet and Smith, exchanged opinions
touching the most abstruse phases of the scientific subjects
in which they were so deeply versed. Major Green
Peyton, engineer by profession though he was, and financier
by long training, was perfectly able to break a lance
with him as to the true significance of some quotation
from the great English authors, which Barbour had submitted
for an interpretation. They debated upon
Lamb, and Wordsworth, and DeQuincey. Peyton criticized,
with vigorous contempt, the modern custom of expurgating
the text of the masters. "Why not," he
wrote, "publish a clever man's whole works, if not utterly
indecent; and what constitutes indecency when we
publish Fielding, Smollett, and Shakspere, Swift, and
Sterne, and the rest of them? I don't thank anybody for
withholding anything."