University of Virginia Library

NOTES TO III. 1865-1895. FROM THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES TO THE BURNING OF THE ROTUNDA.

The abbreviations indicated below are used for the materials which
are most frequently referred to in the footnotes for this period.

Abernethy. Abernethy, Thomas Perkins. Historical Sketch of the University
of Virginia. Richmond, Dietz Press, c1848.

Bruce. Bruce, Philip Alexander. History of the University of Virginia,
1819-1919. New York, Macmillan, c1920-1922. Five volumes.

Faculty Minutes. Manuscript minutes of meetings of the University of
Virginia Faculty. These are among the University Archives in the
Alderman Library.

Patton. Patton, John Shelton. Jefferson, Cabell and the University of
Virginia. New York, Neale Publishing Company, 1906.

Visitors Minutes. Manuscript minutes of meetings of the University of
Virginia Board of Visitors. These are among the University Archives
in the Alderman Library.

140. This list of the thirteen Professors indicates the School of each
and the period of tenure in that School, the place of birth, and the institutions
in which college and university training was received. Items concerning
special service during the war of 1861-1865 was added.

Bledsoe, Albert Taylor. Mathematics (1854-1863). Born in Frankfort,
Kentucky. Studied at the United States Military Academy at West Point. During
the war he was Chief of the War Bureau and Assistant Secretary of War
for the Confederacy.

Cabell, James Lawrence. Anatomy and Surgery (1837-1849), Comparative
Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery (1849-1861), Physiology and Surgery (18611889).
Chairman of the Faculty 1846-1847. Born in Nelson County, Virginia.
Studied at the University of Virginia and at the Medical Department of the
University of Maryland. During the war was in charge of Military Hospitals
for the Confederacy.

Coleman, Lewis Miner. Latin (1859-1861). Born in Hanover County, Virginia.
Studied at the University of Virginia. Rose to rank of Lieutenant Colonel
of Artillery during the war and died in 1863 from wounds received at the
Battle of Fredericksburg.

Davis, John Staige. Anatomy, Materia Medica, Therapeutics, and Botany
(1856-1861), Anatomy and Materia Medica (1861-1885). Born in Albemarle
County, Virginia. Studied at the University of Virginia.

Gildersleeve, Basil Lanneau. Greek and Hebrew (1856-1876), Latin (18611865).
Born in Charleston, South Carolina. Studied at the College of
Charleston, Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, and Princeton University, and

at the Universities of Berlin, Bonn, and Göttingen. During the war was Aide-de-Camp
to Generals Gilliam and J. B. Gordon.

Holcombe, James Philemon. Law (Adjunct Professor 1851-1854, Professor
(1854-1861). Born in Lynchburg, Virginia. Studied at Yale and at the
University of Virginia. Resigned to become a member of the Confederate Congress,
and was later Commissioner to Canada for the Confederacy.

Holmes, George Frederick. History and General Literature (1857-1882). Born
in Demarara, British Guiana. Studied at Durham University in England.

Howard, Henry. Medicine (1839-1867). Born in Frederick County, Maryland.
Studied medicine in Philadelphia.

Maupin, Socrates. Chemistry (1853-1871). Was Chairman of the Faculty 18541870.
Born in Albemarle County, Virginia, and studied at the University of
Virginia.

McGuffey, William Holmes. Moral Philosophy (1845-1873). Born in Washington
County, Pennsylvania. Studied at Washington College, Pennsylvania.

Minor, John Barbee. Law (1845-1895). Born in Louisa County, Virginia.
Studied at Kenyon College and at the University of Virginia.

Schele de Vere, Maximilian. Modern Languages (1844-1895). Born in Wexio,
Sweden. Studied at Berlin, Bonn, and Harvard Universities.

Smith, Francis Henry. Natural Philosophy (1853-1907). Born at Leesburg,
Virginia. Studied at Wesleyan University, Connecticut, and at the University
of Virginia. Was Commissioner of Weights and Measures for the Confederacy.

The statistics of student enrollment are taken from the 1860-1861
University Catalogue, p. 22.

141. Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 262, 263. See also Smith, Francis H., "The
University of Virginia During the Civil War", in University of Virginia: Its
History, Influence, Equipment and Characteristics... New York, Lewis Publishing
Company, 1904, two volumes. Vol. 1, pp. 171-173. Professor
Holcombe's views are stated, but his name is not given by Professor Smith.

142. Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 259-262.

143. Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 275-279. Patton, pp. 204-212.

144. Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 280-284. Patton, pp. 212, 213.

145. Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 256-340. Johnson, John Lipscomb, The University
Memorial: Biographical Sketches, Baltimore, Turnbull Brothers, 1871.
Patton, pp. 222-233.

146. University Catalogue, Session of 1865-'66, pp. 5-10.

147. Bruce, vol. 3, p. 321.

148. Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 312-315. The number 1,400 is given in Socrates
Maupin's Journal as Chairman of the Faculty, as printed in Papers of the
Albemarle County Historical Society, vol. III, 1942-43, p. 64.

149. Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 331-338. Patton, pp. 214-217. Col. Thomas L.
Preston was the Rector, and Prof. Socrates Maupin the Chairman of the
Faculty.

150. Doyle, A Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes. The A. Conan Doyle
Memorial Edition; with a Preface by Christopher Morley. Garden City,
Doubleday, Doran, 1933. Two volumes. The quotation is from vol. 1,
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, p. 23.

151. The manuscript is in the Rare Book and Manuscript Division of the
Alderman Library. It has been edited by Lester J. Cappon and published in
Volume III, 1942-43, of the Papers of the Albemarle County Historical Society,
pp. 56-69, with the title, "Socrates Maupin's Journal as Chairman of the
Faculty, University of Virginia, 1861-1864."

152. Smith, Francis H. "The University of Virginia During the Civil War",
pp. 171-173 of vol. 1 of University of Virginia: Its History, Influence,
Equipment and Characteristics, New York, Lewis Publishing Company, 1904,
two volumes.

153. Faculty Minutes, 2 December 1861.

154. Visitors Minutes, 27 May 1861.

155. Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 311-312.

156. Faculty Minutes, 3 July 1861.

157. Visitors Minutes, 4 July 1863.

158. Faculty Minutes, 2 May 1864.

159. Faculty Minutes, 5 July 1864.

160. Bruce, vol. 3, p. 329.

161. Faculty Minutes, 1 March 1861. This remarkable document is quoted
in full.

"Professor Holmes submitted the following preamble &resolution which
on motion were adopted -

"It is conceived to be of supreme importance to the communities among
whom grave political &social transactions occur, that the best materials
for reliable information in regard to the character and causes of the
change, the nature and consequences of the actions, the motives, pretexts
and conduct of the agents, should be procurred &preserved in an acceptable
form for the instruction of future inquirers. - Such sources of accurate
historical knowledge can be obtained with certainty in an unbroken series
and in adequate fulness only during the pendency and progress of the revolutionary
movement; and, if not secured coincidently with the occurrences of
the events can scarcely be brought together in later days, when such
authoritative memorials are felt to be indispensable for the formation of
a correct judgment of the past and a due estimation of the policy of the
times then current. -

153A. Visitors' Minutes, 11 September 1862.

"These and other analogous considerations, which induced Thucydides
to collect all serviceable information relative to the fatal dissensions of
the Greek States from the very commencement of the Peloponnesian war, and
which are illustrated by the value deservedly attached to the various
Memoirs of the Great Rebellion in England, to the Documentary History of the
French Revolution, and to the contemporaneous Memorials of the American
Revolution, - under manufest the urgent importance of procuring &preserving,
from the beginning of the great contention, all the authentic contemporaneous
documents relating to the great controversy which is now distracting
the Country, and destroying the integrity of the United States of America -
Such a collection would hereafter be received as a priceless and everlasting
possession, and would afford the only trustworthy means of ascertaining and
appreciating the right, and of commemorating and censuring the wrong, which
may be involved in the mighty political discussion. - The only assured
mode of obtaining an adequate body of such memorials is by commencing and
continuing their collection during the progress of the struggle, and in the
hour of their publication. - It is due, moreover, to the interests of the
future, to the claims of historic truth, to the perpetuation of the convictions
of great political parties, and to the defence of public sentiment in
the Southern States; - it is equally due to the credit of this University
of Virginia, and incumbent upon it as one of the Conservators and dispensers
of accurate &liberal knowledge, that it should discharge the function of
providing in time and of carefully preserving a complete body of authentic
contemporaneous historical memorials in regard to the great political dis-silience
of the formerly United States of America, -

"Therefore the Faculty of the University of Virginia Resolve

"1. That a sum of money not exceeding one hundred dollars for the
present be appropriated from the Library fund for the purpose of procuring
for the Library the regular issues of the most important newspapers, periodical
publications, and other authentic documents, recording and illustrating
the growth, progress, and fluctuations of these unhappy dissensions which
threaten &have in part accomplished the overthrow of the confederation of
the United States -

"2. That a permanent Committee of three members be appointed to select
and obtain for the Library such documents of all kinds, appearing regularly
or occasionally, as constitute important sources of information in regard to
the current discords: and that it shall be their duty also to correspond
with the proper authorities and request from the General and Local Governments,
from their Legislatures and Executives, the presentation of their
Public Papers. -

"3. That this Committee shall superintend the arrangement, and secure
the careful preservation of the materials which may be brought together
through its agency -

"4. That this collection of the sources of present History be kept by
the Librarian distinct from his general body of the Library under the title
of Memorials of the American Disruption: that no portion of the collection
be allowed to be removed at any time from the Library rooms without the
special order of the Faculty; and that particular care be taken in maintaining
unbroken each series of Newspapers and other Periodical publications.

"5. That the members of the Committee shall be changeable from time
to time by substitution: that the Committee shall be always controllable by
the general body of the Faculty; that they shall report their proceedings

to the Faculty whenever it seems expedient to do so, and whenever they may
be called on for that purpose; and that they communicate to the Faculty
such future additions to the Collection as may be deemed necessary.

"6. That the Librarian be requested to procure a book suitable for a
full index of this collection, and to enter therein under appropriate titles,
and under the several years and months to which they particularly relate,
the various documents received; so that a satisfactory means of reference to
the contents of the Collection, or to the authorities on any particular topic
or period may always be accessible, without the unnecessary handling of those
parts of the Collection which do not contain the desired information.

"Under these Resolutions the Chairman appointed the following members
of the Faculty to constitute the Committee

"Messrs. Holmes, Cabell &Minor." (These three Professors were George
Frederick Holmes, History and General Literature; James Lawrence Cabell,
Comparative Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery; John Barbee Minor, Law.)

163. For this and the following paragraph, see a succinct statement in
Abernethy pp. 24, 25 and a more expanded exposition in Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 341352.

164. See Abernethy, pp. 24, 25; Bruce, vol. 3, p. 347 and 350, 351; and for the enrollment
numbers, see the annual university catalogues for 1865-1866 and 18661867.

165. See Abernethy, p. 25; Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 352-354.

166. Visitors' Minutes 28 June 1866.

167. Visitors' Minutes 28 June 1872.

162. The story of this proposal is told in "A Plan of 1861 to Preserve Civil
War Materials" in volume I, 1940-1941, of Papers of the Albemarle County
Historical Society, pages 37-39. This article itself is reprinted from
Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 16, 1888, pp. 56-58.

Details of a somewhat similar attempt which was begun about 1930 may be
found in the introductions to the first ten Annual Reports of the Archivists,
University of Virginia Library, and in the Introduction to the General Index
to First Fifteen Annual Reports on Historical Collections, University of
Virginia Library, 1931-1945.

For the Confederate Collection at the Boston Athenaeum Library see (1)
Boston Athenaeum Confederate Literature: a List of Books and Newspapers,
Maps, Music and Miscellaneous Matter Printed in the South During the
Confederacy, Now in the Boston Athenaeum. Prepared by Charles N. Baxter and
James N. Dearborn, with an Introduction by James Ford Rhodes. Boston, 1917.
(2) The Athenaeum Centenary: the Influence and History of the Boston
Athenaeum from 1807 to 1907. Boston, 1907, p. 62.

The cooperation of the University of Virginia with the Athenaeum
Library in the matter of the extensive bibliography of Confederate material
that is being compiled in 1950 is mentioned on page 204 of the text. Mr.
Wyllie has made the very interesting suggestion that William F. Poole or
Francis Parkman, who had much to do with starting the Confederate Collection
at the Boston Athenaeum, may have caught the idea from seeing one of the
Holmes communications.

167A. Visitors' Minutes, 6 July 1865.

168. Faculty Minutes, 4 July 1865.

169. Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 350, 351.

170. Visitors' Minutes, 28 June 1866.

171. Visitors' Minutes, 29 June 1866.

172. Faculty Minutes, 1 December 1868; Visitors' Minutes, 27 June 1871.
From references in the University of Virginia Magazine, vol. 7, nos.
2 &3, November, December 1868, pp. 140, 141 and vol. 9, no. 9, June
1871, p. 524 and from the sketch in the Dictionary of American
Biography it is apparent that A. A. Low was Abiel Abbot Low,
Director of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway and father of the Hon.
Seth Low, President of Columbia University 1890-1901 and Mayor of
Greater New York 1902-1903.

173. University Catalogue, session 1872-1873, p. 70.

174. Faculty Minutes, 26 June 1874.

175. Faculty Minutes 1 November 1876.

176. Faculty Minutes 1 March 1881.

177. Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 350, 351.

178. Faculty Minutes 1 November 1876; Visitors Minutes 26 June 1877.

179. Visitors' Minutes 29 June 1881.

180. Bruce, vol. 4, pp. 197, 198. A blow-by-blow account of the political
situation is given by Richard L. Morton in chapter IX, pages 178-220, of his
volume on Virginia Since 1861, which is volume three of the six volume
History of Virginia published by the American Historical Society, Chicago
and New York, 1924.

181. Visitors' Minutes 28 and 29 June 1882. Note both the report of the
Visitors' Library Committee and the action of the Visitors.

182. Faculty Minutes 30 September 1882.

183. Visitors' Minutes 27 March 1883. There are further references to
the Gordon Fund in Faculty Minutes 15 June 1883, in Visitors Minutes 26 and
28 June 1883, in the Visitors Minutes 27 June 1884, and in the Alumni
Bulletin, vol. 6, no. 4, February 1900, p. 117.

184. Visitors Minutes 11 September 1884. There are references to the
settlement of the Austin estate scattered through the Visitors Minutes for
many years.

185. Faculty Minutes 1 May 1885 and 20 June 1885.

186. Visitors Minutes 29 June 1886.

187. Visitors Minutes 12 July 1888.

188. Visitors Minutes 1 July 1891.

189. Visitors Minutes 26, 28, 29 June 1877 and 25 April 1890.

190. Faculty Minutes 1 December 1885; 2 January 1888; 21 June 1888.

191. Faculty Minutes 1 April 1891; 1 May 1891.

192. Faculty Minutes 12 June 1893; Visitors Minutes 12 June 1893.

193. Faculty Minutes 15 June 1893; 3 September 1894; 4 January 1895.
In the Alumni Bulletin vol. 1, no. 4, February 1895, pp. 109, 110 there is
a statement in regard to the card catalogue; and in the Alumni Bulletin
vol. 4, no. 4, February 1898 there is a notice of Miss Rice's death in
Worcester, Massachusetts, 28 November 1897, with an appreciation of her
character and of her work at the University of Virginia during the session
of 1894-1895. The description "educated librarian" is quoted from that
notice.

194. Visitors Minutes 10 June 1895 and 15 August 1895.

195. Visitors Minutes 2 July 1885.

196. Faculty Minutes 2 December 1878.

197. Faculty Minutes 31 March 1879.

198. Faculty Minutes 22 January 1880.

199. The correspondence service is first mentioned in the University Catalogue
for the session of 1878-1879, p. 55.

200. The contrasting attitudes are clearly indicated in Faculty Minutes
4 January and 15 February 1895 and in Visitors Minutes 29 March 1895. The
Visitors' inclusion of former members of their Board among residents of
Charlottesville to whom borrowing might be permitted is recorded in
Visitors Minutes 3 July 1879. The conservative tendency of the members of
of Visitors is also shown in Visitors Minutes 11 June 1894, and the more
liberal tendency of the Faculty is also shown in Faculty Minutes 1 June
1867, 21 March 1879, 2 June 1879, and 4 June 1894.

201. See typed copy of the references to the Lee Papers in the minutes of
the Board of Visitors and of the Faculty. This typed copy was prepared as
a supplement to footnote 97.

202. A chronological list of references on dancing in the Rotunda in the
minutes of the Board of Visitors and of the Faculty accompanies these footnotes
as a supplement to footnote 202.

203. Visitors Minutes 4 July 1863. See footnote 157.

204. Bruce, vol. 3, pp. 21-27; Patton, p. 189.

205. Bruce, vol. 4, pp. 193, 194.

206. Faculty Minutes 9 May 1888.

207. Faculty Minutes 5 October 1875. See footnote 115.

208. Faculty Minutes 17 December 1869.

209. Faculty Minutes 1 December 1880.

209A. Visitors Minutes, 30 June 1886 (removal recommended); 4 August 1886
(removal made permissive).

209B. Visitors Minutes, 12 July 1888.

210. Faculty Minutes, 16 June 1886.

211. Faculty Minutes, 1 March 1890. The Biological Laboratory seems to
have been in the so-called Medical Hall. For the location of the buildings,
see the map inserted in the University Catalogue for the session of 18951896.

212. Faculty Minutes, 1 May and 20 June 1885.

213. Faculty Minutes, 3 September 1894.

214. Faculty Minutes 9 June 1894.

215. On the death of Daniel Burton Fayerweather, a New York leather
merchant, in 1890, it was found that he had bequeathed the bulk of his
estate of several million dollars to a score of colleges, There was a prolonged
contest of the will, but the decision was in favor of the beneficiaries
designated by the will. The case for the University of Virginia
was argued by an alumnus, Robert Coleman Taylor. His briefs for this case
were presented by his widow to the manuscript division of the Alderman
Library. The amount received by the University of Virginia was $100,000.

216. Alumni Bulletin, vol. 1, no. 2, July 1894, p. 39.

217. Alumni Bulletin, vol. 1, no. 3, November 1894, p. 92.

218. During 1894 occured the railway strikes ordered by Eugene V. Debs
and crushed in Chicago by Federal troops under orders from President
Cleveland. This was also the year of the march on Washington of some
20,000 unemployed, led by Jacob S. Coxey.

219. Visitors Minutes 10 June 1895.

220. For the "valiant group of university defenders" see footnote 149.

221. There are many accounts of the Rotunda fire. Most of them, like the
attempt, are largely based on a vivid narrative by Morgan Poitiaux Robinson,
who was a student eyewitness and participant. Robinson was later State
Archivist of Virginia. His account was expanded from a twenty-eight page
letter which he wrote to his mother on the night of the fire. Taking much
verbatim from the letter, he prepared the article printed in the University
of Virginia Magazine for October 1905- ten years later. This article,
somewhat revised, and with an Introduction by Philip Alexander Bruce, was
separately printed by the F. J. Mitchell Printing Company of Richmond under
copyright of 1921 — a booklet of thirty pages with twelve illustrations.

An account by another eyewitness appeared in The Commonwealth for June
1951, pages 14, 15, 39. This corrects Robinson in at least one detail.
The author was Lewis Catlett Williams, a student during 1893-1898 in both
college and department of law, with B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University
of Virginia, and later during 1922-1946, a member of the Board of Visitors.

An independent description appeared in the Alumni Bulletin for
November 1895 (vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 67-74) under the title "The University
Ablaze."

Bruce, vol. 4, pp. 252-265, and Patton, pp. 278-284, tell the story
in detail, with quotations from the Robinson account.

That the Rotunda fire is still newsworthy was demonstrated in March
1952 when the account to which this is a footnote was being written. For
in the student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, for 14 March 1952, was printed
a story of "The Great Rotunda Fire of 1895" by Charles G. Anderson III.

There seems to be agreement that defective wiring was the most probable
cause of the fire.

221A. Mr. Wyllie recalls that in his student days (his B.A. was received
in 1930) Professor Echols was called "Zeus" because of the thunderbolts
thrown at the time of the Rotunda fire.

222. The map inserted in the University Catalogue for the session of 18951896
indicates the location of the students' reading room.

223. No comment can add to the pathos of the following minutes from meetings
of the Faculty on the dates indicated;-

Faculty Minutes 31 October 1895. "Resolved, that Mr. F. W. Page, the
Librarian, be instructed to inform the Faculty as to the measures taken by
him to save the most valuable portions of the Library from the fire on the
27th inst."

Faculty Minutes 13 November 1895. "The following paper is submitted
by Mr. F. W. Page, Librarian, in reply to the action of the Faculty at the
meeting of Oct. 31st, and on motion is accepted:-