University of Virginia Library

VIII. Fidelity of the Professors

Although not liable to military summons, several of
the professors were enrolled, at one time or another,
in the service. Lewis M. Coleman, as we have seen,
died of wounds received at Fredericksburg. "His place
in the army may be filled," said the sorrowing Faculty,
in their memorial resolution, "but how shall the
vacancy in our midst, which we expected him to resume,
be supplied?" Gildersleeve dropped his study of the
Peloponnesian and Punic wars to snuff gunpowder smoke
and hear the guns roar on a real battlefield. As a member
of the staff of General Gordon, in the last campaign
in the Valley, he rode up and down in the shadow of the
Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, and brought back to
the quiet halls which he had deserted, a shattered leg as
a permanent proof of his bravery and devotion. Indeed,
he was crippled for life, like some veteran of
Fabius who had striven to do his part towards driving
the Carthaginian invader from his native soil.

Professors Cabell and Davis, and Doctor Allan, the

demonstrator of anatomy, during many hours of each
day, walked to the hospital at Charlottesville, and administered
faithfully and skilfully to the needs of the Confederate
wounded. Whatever money they received from
the Confederate government for this employment of their
time and experience was cheerfully deposited by them in
the impoverished treasury of the University. Professor
Bledsoe was in attendance at one time in the War
Department as assistant secretary, and was afterwards
engaged in literary work for purposes of publicity. Holcombe
occupied a seat in the Confederate Congress.
Robert J. Massie, who had, for a time, filled Bledsoe's
vacant chair, died while performing the duties of an
engineer, for which he had been so fully equipped.
Professor Schele, in the course of 1863, obtained the
consent of the Board to visit Europe, to which he was to
be sent on an important mission of the State Department;
but events seem to have intervened to prevent his departure
from Virginia.

As early as May 27, 1861, the Visitors were sanguine
that the professor of chemistry and the laboratory at the
University could be made serviceable in the manufacture
of fulminating powder for the charging of caps and
fuses; and they formally offered to the Government at
Richmond, for this purpose, all the appliances and materials
of that character then in the possession of the
institution. This offer was accepted, and the Faculty
were instructed to carry it into effect at once. There is
no evidence, however, that the University turned out a
large proportion of the articles of this nature which
were used by the Confederate armies.

During the same month, the Board decided that the
hour had come when a school of military science should
be established. The practical plans which Captain Matthews,

the military instructor of an earlier period, had
been so solicitous to enforce, were now, under the influence
of actual hostilities, adopted. In the new school,
the science of war in all its branches, and the principles of
civil engineering, were to be taught; and the lectures and
exercises were to be continued even during the interval
of vacation. It was optional with a student to pursue
both or only one of the two courses. It was probably
expected by the Board that these new studies would,
not only serve a useful purpose by giving a military training,
but also add to the depleted attendance of young men
at the University. No instructor seems to have been
elected to fill the chair, and it is possible that some of its
duties were performed by the professor of mathematics.
In September, 1861, it was spoken of as the provisional
military school, and the receipts from it,—no doubt, in
the form of matriculation fees,—at the beginning of that
session, were two hundred and sixty-five dollars, which
would indicate that the department of civil engineering
at least had attracted pupils. It was, perhaps, under
the general supervision of the officers who had charge of
this military department, that the active training of several
companies was carried on, during the summer of
1861.

In the summer of 1862, the University buildings were
converted into a military hospital by order of Dr. J. P.
Smith, the Confederate Medical Inspector; and here
were brought so large a number of the wounded, after
the Battle of First Manassas, that not only were the
dormitories on the Lawn and in the Ranges filled, but
also the rooms in Dawson's Row, the apartments in the
Rotunda, and the spacious public hall itself. In some
instances, several patients occupied a single room. This
occurred in a dormitory in Bachelor's Row. One of the

three wounded soldiers sheltered in this apartment was
a Federal prisoner. "Hello," said a visitor who, so soon
as he crossed the threshold, had noticed the blue uniform,
"how did this Yankee get in here?" "Leave him
alone," was the reply of his Confederate companions in
misfortune, "we are brothers now through suffering."

The attitude of the Board and Faculty towards this
use of the buildings does not seem to have been in harmony
with the prevailing spirit of self-sacrifice. They
protested to the Confederate Government against such
an appropriation of the premises; they requested that
the wounded should be removed; and they even went so
far as to demand compensation for the damage which
had been caused by the presence of so many disabled
men. The explanation of this apparently unpatriotic
conduct on their part is to be found in the almost fanatical
anxiety of the University's authorities to keep the dormitories
and lecture-halls always wide open to students.
If the Confederate Government could convert the buildings
into a hospital after one battle, like First Manassas,
they could do so after every battle which should
follow, and there would be an irresistible temptation
to continue such use of the rooms in the absence of convenient
hospital facilities. This use was, therefore, certain
to be repeated if the earliest instance of it was accepted
by the Board and Faculty as a condition to be
submitted to cheerfully because a matter of course.

During the summer of 1862, the presence of several
hundred wounded in the dormitories seemed to put an
end to the prospect of admitting students at the opening
of the approaching session. Not only were all the
rooms occupied, but the presence of the diseases that
follow wounds was certain to leave behind the germs of
danger to health, even if the apartments should be vacated

in time for the matriculation of young men in October.
The members of the Board were as acutely interested
in the success of the Confederate cause, and as
quick to make personal sacrifices for its advancement as
any equal number of citizens in the community; but they
believed that the University buildings were not indispensable
to the medical department of the army, and they
felt that it was their positive duty to preserve those buildings
for the exclusive purpose for which they had been
erected. A resolution was adopted by the executive committee
in July, 1862, which declared that the welfare of
all the people demanded that the institution should continue
its functions as freely in war as in peace; and the
Faculty were instructed to advertise, that, in spite of the
presence of the wounded within the precincts during the
summer, the usual courses of instruction would be begun
in the autumn. Twelve months afterwards, when the
Board convened, every member of it registered his clear
opinion that it would be unwise to close the University,
however small might be the attendance at any time while
hostilities were in progress.

The Faculty had reached the same conclusion. "To
have suspended the operations of the University," they
said retrospectively, in 1865, "was to break up the organization
of the institution; to expose the public property
to trespass and injury, and perhaps to destruction; and
to jeopardize the maintenance of the peculiar plan and
methods of instruction to which so much of the success
and reputation of the institution had been due in the past."
Influenced by these convictions, no less than by the advice
and authority of the Board of Visitors, they remained at
their posts in spite of the smallness of the number of students
who were now able to resort to the lecture-rooms,
and in the face of the severest sacrifices and privations,

—to which they were to be more and more exposed as
the war should drag on to an end. The salaries which
they received, owing to the steady fall in the purchasing
power of the paper currency, failed to supply their families
with a sufficient quantity of the necessaries of life,—
indeed, they hardly possessed a comfort beyond what was
afforded by their furnished pavilions; and even these
were in a state of serious disrepair. They met their
classes from day to day with as strict regard to the hour
of convening, and with as scrupulous fidelity to the tenor
of their duties, as if they still looked down upon long
rows of attentive young faces, as in the happier times that
prevailed before the war.

As early as September, 1861, the Board of Visitors
had declared, that, as the South was engaged in a struggle
in which everything precious to its people was at stake,
"every institution and every man should yield to every
inconvenience and sacrifice required by the public service;"
and that the form which the patriotism of the
University and its remaining Faculty should assume was
"the doubling up of the chairs." When Coleman withdrew
to the army, the original School of Ancient Languages
was restored, and its combined duties were taken
over by Gildersleeve, who was as fully competent to
teach Latin as he was to teach Greek. During the session
of 1863–4 and 1864–5, Smith, in addition to occupying
his regular professorship of natural philosophy, was
also the incumbent of the professorship of mathematics.
Minor once more assumed the entire task of instruction
in the School of Law. Maupin, Howard, Cabell, Davis,
McGuffey, and Holmes continued to deliver lectures in
their usual courses. Down to January 1, 1862, David
K. Tuttle remained in charge of the department of practical
chemistry. Wertenbaker was still the secretary

of the Faculty, and R. R. Prentis, besides filling the office
of proctor, served as librarian after the retirement
of Thomas B. Holcombe. William A. Pratt acted as
superintendent of buildings and grounds until January 1,
1862, and after an interval of one year's absence, discharged
its duties until the close of the war.

During the autumn of 1861, the Faculty convened on
the first day of each month, and continued to do so,
throughout the remainder of the session, down to June 1,
1862. During that month, they assembled on three
separate occasions; and they also came together once in
July, and also once in September, once in November, and
once in December. At each one of these meetings, not
less than six members were present, and sometimes eight.
In 1863, the Faculty convened at least once during every
month of the twelve, except June and August. As Bledsoe
returned to his chair temporarily in the spring of
that year, the attendance rose to an average of eight.
In 1864, the Faculty failed to assemble once a month
only in August, September, October, and November.
They met on three different occasions in May, and twice
in July. There was now a regular attendance of at
least seven professors. Gildersleeve, who was then serving
on General Gordon's staff, was absent from the
meetings held after July, 1864. In 1865, before the
close of hostilities in April, the Faculty convened on
January 5, and March 1 and 6. On the latter date,
the professors in attendance were Maupin, McGuffey,
Howard, Smith, Davis, Cabell, Schele, and Minor.
Throughout the entire course of the war, Professor Schele
was absent from the Faculty table only on three occasions;
Professor Howard only on two. Professor McGuffey
rarely allowed any cause to keep him away from
his seat.