NEWS

The Civil War posed a great threat to Davidson College. Students and faculty rushed to enlist, and war shortages threatened the few who remained. I’ve already written about student William Alexander Smith’s reminiscences of the run-up to the war, but Cornelia Shaw’s 1923 book, Davidson College: Intimate Facts, includes a lot of information about events after the war started.

The first shots in the conflict occurred at Fort Sumter in Charleston on April 12, 1861. According to Shaw, “During the week following May 3, 1861, many students left to join the armies of the different States from which they came. The Junior Class as a unit asked permission to go into service. This was granted.”

None of the other students expressed a desire to leave college until ten days later, when President Lincoln called for a large army designed to move against the states that had seceded. Despite the faculty’s pleas to students to hold off enlisting until it was certain they were needed, Shaw notes that “The excitement became intense and uncontrollable.”

Some students enlisted immediately, and parents began to want them home so they could enlist in local volunteer companies or help with farmwork. Some parents came to pick up their children, and others sent express messengers to do so. By June all the students had left.

Twenty-nine students enrolled in the fall of 1861, and “instruction in the various departments was ‘conducted as in more prosperous years.’”  By April of 1862, however, the Confederate Congress was considering a draft of all men between 18 and 35. Two thirds of the students prepared to leave, and the others were too excited to participate in class.

According to Shaw, “Professor Lynch had already commenced the work of raising a company of volunteers from the immediate vicinity, and those students subject to the bill mentioned, with one or two exceptions, joined themselves to this company. The young volunteers from the near-by Counties boarded in private homes at the expense of the Government. The oil cloth was taken from the college tables and made into knap sacks for this company by the village women.” After a few weeks of training, the company joined Company K, 42^nd North Carolina Regiment under Captain Benoni Alexander.

The college was closed the first week in May, and when it opened in September, it featured only a preparatory department, “partly to give employment to the Faculty while there was not a full complement of classes, and partly to supply a want because of the closing of so many schools. The President and Professors— men trained for college and university teaching … remained at their posts to teach (largely) disabled soldiers and untaught students in the grammar grades, keeping the college open year by year throughout the agitated period.”

The faculty’s decision to stay saved the college for the future. That year, there were 24 college students and four preparatory students. Attendance rose and fell  over the years, and the lack of the upper classes and the literary societies affected discipline. “The attendance fluctuated and the results were far from satisfactory.”

The faculty eventually concluded that “Withal, it is possible that the method we have pursued in the government of the Institution in its present complex character, has not been in all respects the most judicious.”

Alumnus F. Brevard McDowell, who eventually graduated in 1869, described his experience during this period: "I entered the preparatory department and remained during the years 1863 and 1864. The only boys above eighteen years of age were a number from Virginia cities and portions of eastern North Carolina, who had employed substitutes or were seeking to escape the Confederate service. Generally, their examples were not worthy of being followed, and they had a decided demoralizing effect upon the young ‘preps,’ who were of the formative age when tobacco smoke, loud talk and pompous airs most appeal to boys’ admiration and adoration.”

There were severe shortages everywhere, including food. According to McDowell, board in the dining hall cost $15 a month, and board at a private home had risen to $25. Corn dodgers, turnips and dried apple pies appeared frequently on the menu. Some of the “country-bred” boys had rabbit traps, and their catches were used to augment the menu. Clothing was also poor. According to McDowell, all of the “preps” sported home-knit socks, homespun jeans, and pegged shoes in which the soles are attached to the shoe with small wooden pegs.

At the beginning of the 1863-64 term, there were 31 college students and 60 preparatory students. That spring, however, the draft age was lowered to 17, and the college enrollment decreased to 24, only eight of whom were doing “real college work.”  In early July, before the railroad tracks through Davidson were torn up for the iron rails, the college closed so that the remaining students could use the train to get home. The only senior enrolled was allowed to graduate. The president and three professors remained on campus; the salaries of the latter were increased to help them deal with war prices.

Three unidentified soldiers from the 4th North Carolina Regiment (Found at civilwartalk.com)

By fall, classes had resumed with ten college students and 30 preparatory students. Among the college students were a wounded Alabamian and his three friends, and Mississippian T.W. Howard who had also been wounded.

A student reported that, as the Confederate surrender neared, “the students became so homesick and anxious that they could not study and at a gathering under the balcony of Helper's store they decided to go. A student each from Lincoln and Gaston counties left at once on foot. The Alabamians bought a horse and wagon and started on their long and eventful journey, they walking while Howard, the crippled soldier from Mississippi, drove the wagon which carried their belongings."

The college re-opened in January and according to a faculty report on July 14, 1865: "The excited condition of the country…caused first by the invasion of the State by Sherman, and afterwards by Stoneman's raid, has seriously interrupted the exercises of this session. During a portion of the time Professors Mclver and Blake were absent on military duty, and the students from different parts of the country, sympathizing with suffering friends, were naturally impatient to get home. By April 19, all those in the college department were gone.

“On the next day the intelligence of the surrender of the Confederate Army and the critical condition of the Army in this State renewed and increased the alarm. The result was that the students except two or three left us."

The college closed on April 20, the day of Lee’s surrender. According to Shaw, as a final indignity, “In May, 1865, a detachment of United States troops, sent for the purpose of moving some government supplies, visited Davidson. They broke open the doors and windows of the recitation rooms and chapel and did damage to apparatus and buildings amounting to eight hundred dollars.” In the end, 302 Davidson students, 82 of whom were graduates, entered the service.

The college re-opened in the fall of 1865, with a faculty of three and one tutor, and a college enrollment of 22. There were seven in the preparatory department, which would close a few years later. According to Shaw, “Conditions were deplorable and the period proved a dark and discouraging one. Worse than poverty was the humiliation pressed on the neck of the defeated South. The faculty began to take measures to improve the situation, including attempts to increase the faculty so it could compete with other institutions in the area.

“To add structure to the student experience, both literary societies were reorganized in 1866. The college was also focused in improving its library and the condition of its buildings and grounds. According to their report, "Strangers who visit the place do not hesitate to express their surprise that so expensive buildings and such capable grounds should be left in so rude and uninviting a condition, and they form unfavorable impressions of the College.

“It is believed that if the whole appearance of the College and its appurtenances were rendered more attractive, our students would not only form a stronger attachment to the place, but others would take a deeper interest in the Institution and be more disposed to favor it.””

The recovery instituted by the faculty and the board began to show results by the 1868-69 term. Fall enrollment was 122 students, and there was a full commencement with 12 graduates. Recovery would continue for a number of years, but the process of saving the college was well underway.

More information may be found on pp. 103-121 in Cornelia Shaw’s Davidson College: Intimate Facts. The book is available online.