T. E. Hart: A Citadel cadet in antebellum South Carolina

On November 12, 1860, T. E. Hart arrived at Heidelberg University to pursue doctoral work. Six years later he returned to America having completed a dissertation in mathematics under the supervision of Otto Hesse. He had studied alongside major figures in German mathematics such as Heinrich Weber, Jakob Lüroth, and Max Noether. This was a remarkable achievement. He was one of the first Americans to pursue advanced study in mathematics in Europe. The first math dissertation by an American was only written in 1862, two years after Hart arrived at Heidelberg. Upon his return, Hart was one of the most accomplished mathematicians in the United States. Here we take a look at Hart's life before he went to Germany. 

Ultimately, T. E. Hart's education was a product of the massive personal fortunes made possible by the growing cotton economy in the antebellum south. T. E. was born on Kalmia Plantation in Darlington County, South Carolina on June 26, 1833 to Thomas E. and Hannah Lide Hart. Both Thomas and Hannah were born in the county. Thomas had purchased the plantation more than a decade earlier. The plantation was located along the bluffs of Black Creek between the towns of Society Hill and Camden, where the modern city of Hartsville (named for the family) lies. 

A view of Black Creek from Kalmia Plantation

The Hart family home

The plantation was more modest than the palatial mansions often depicted in popular culture. Thomas's family lived in a two-story farmhouse built using local timber. However, the planation was a large operation. Thomas owned almost 8,000 acres of land of which approximately 1,000 acres had been cleared for farming. He cultivated the land with the help of an enslaved workforce that, over time, grew from thirty people to one hundred. In addition to the family home, located on the plantation were more modest dwellings for the enslaved workforce as well as a gin house and screw, a blacksmith shop, and a shoe shop. Farming on the plantation focused on food provisions and cotton (the main cash crop in the area). 

The area around the plantation went through major changes from the time Thomas first settled there to the time that T. E. was born. When Thomas first arrived, the area around the plantation was largely unsettled, but it developed into a growing farm community. Thomas stood at the center of this growth. He served as postmaster, justice of the peace, and local militia captain, and he ran a store. 

Despite the growth, the area remained largely rural. Thomas's store was the only business of note, and there was no manufacturing. Life was largely organized on large farms or plantations. Except for its size, the Hart family plantation was typical. Most residents lived along Black Creek on farms ranging in size from a few hundred to a few thousand acres. Farmers made their living by raising their own food and growing cotton. Living on the average farm were a white family that owned the land and some number of enslaved workers, usually one or two families. Slaves made up a solid majority of the population: sixty percent of the county in 1840. Most worked and lived in close proximity to their enslavers. The wealthiest families like the Harts could employ overseers to supervise much of the day-to-day work of farming, but most had to run their farm by themselves.

While T. E. was born into one of the most prominent families in the area, the family was in decline when he was growing up. In 1840, when he was only six years old, the family suffered major financial losses in the economic depression that followed the Panic of 1837. Finances became so bad that Thomas was forced to put the plantation up for sale. Hardship struck a second time two years later when Thomas died at the age of forty-six. 

After the father's death, life for T. E. and his siblings largely continued as before albeit under diminished circumstances. The plantation was held in trust by T. E.'s maternal uncle (Thomas C. Law and John W. Lide), and the family continued to farm.

1820 map of Darlington County with the Hart family plantation indicated in red

The educational opportunities in the area were modest, especially in light of T. E.'s later accomplishment. The only school in the area was a humble one-room log schoolhouse built near T. E.'s home. No records of school activities have been found, but it likely was run by a single teacher and poorly funded. (County-wide, educational funding amounted to only $7,000, $600 of which was provided by the state government.)

T. E. left the family plantation at age eighteen (in 1851) to enroll as a cadet at The Citadel, then known as the Citadel Academy, in Charleston. The decision was a reflection of family's decline. Fourteen years earlier, when the family's fortunes were better, his eldest brother Robert L. had graduated from South Carolina College. Located next door to the statehouse in the capital of Columbia (then one of the few cities in the state), the college was the training grounds of the state's planter elite. College coursework focused on the study of Greek and Latin, but students also occupied themselves by carousing in off-campus bars and horse racetracks. For most students, the education they received was impractical (knowledge of classical languages hardly helped one run the family plantation), but it served the important purpose of creating a shared culture among the planter elites who were expected to govern the state. Many would later be reunited with their former classmates at the statehouse while serving as legislators.

Attending the Citadel Academy was certainly a respectable activity for a planter's son, but it was very different experience. Simply stated, the Academy was established to provide the core of a military force that could defend the state if tensions over slavery and sectionalism escalated to political violence. 

The Academy offered an academic education, but one that, in the words of Governor James Hopkins Adams, sought to impart "scientific and practical knowledge" rather than develop "scholarship and intellect" (as was done at South Carolina College). The institute offered no instruction in classical culture. Instead of ancient languages, students learned modern French as well as military tactics.

In general, the institute was run as a tightly regulated military environment. Students not only lived on campus, but they were forbidden from leaving except with written permission and in the company of a parent. Written regulations dictated a student's day down to details like when they woke up, where they ate, and how they dressed. On top of their academic duties, students spent at least forty-five minutes each weekday conducting military drills. Sundays included mandatory chapel religious service, and students had to pass an inspection under arms each Saturday.

The Citadel Academy was relatively small. Student enrollment stood at approximately one hundred. Classes were taught by five professors, each one responsible for all coursework in a given subject. 

One of the most attractive features of the Citadel Academy was financial. About half of the cadets, including T. E. Hart, were fully funded by the state government. Funded students not only had their tuition paid for, but they also received fully subsided room and board as well as uniforms, freeing their parents from a major financial burden. The Academy was an elite institution (only wealthy South Carolinians could provide their children with the education needed to attend the school), but it was more accessible than South Carolina College which offered only limited financial support to students. 

Like virtually all institutions within the state, the Academy made use of enslaved labor. Students were forbidden from bringing slaves with them to campus (a practice allowed at other schools), but faculty enslaved a number of individuals, and the Academy itself employed enslaved labor. No slaves were owned by the Academy. Instead, local enslavers were paid for the services of their slaves. 

Student and faculty fully supported slavery. At the November 1855 graduation ceremony, one alumnus (F. F. Warley) delivered a speech on "The policy of South Carolina." The text of the speech was not reported, but one newspaper described it as one that was "freely tinctured with the hot drops of secession." His speech was complemented by one delivered by a cadet later in the evening. The title: the "System of Southern Slave Labour." 

For the cadets, secession was not an abstract political idea. They were aware that it would require them to take up arms against other states. A cadet (T. R. Cantey) from the Citadel's sister academy, the Arsenal Academy, participated in an 1851 Fourth of July celebration held to rally people around the cause of slavery and secession. He joined in a series of toasts. Following toasts condemning the "despotism" of the northern states and the federal government and affirming South Carolina's duty to defend its sovereignty, the cadet declared that the military academies "are ready!"

Overall, the Citadel Academy was a place where young men on the margins of planter society were given a chance to improve their position in exchange for their hard work in support of secession and potential armed conflict. Unlike graduates of South Carolina College, they could not expect a clear path to state politics, but they could expect to make a respectable living as a teacher or a soldier after receiving their degree.

T. E. flourished at the Academy. He was ranked first in his class of roughly twenty students during his first two years. He ultimately graduated second in a class of thirteen cadets.

The academy was certainly not a place that promoted the quiet contemplation of abstract mathematics, but for nineteenth century American's higher education system, it was a reasonable place to learn the subject. If anything, with its practical focus, it offered better training than most other colleges and universities in the state.

The coursework in mathematics was typical for the time and place. Courses during the first two years covered basic algebra, geometry, and trigonometry as presented in standard textbooks by Charles Davies (a former West Point professor who was a prolific textbook writer). Calculus following a commonly used textbook by Albert E. Church was taught in the third year. No math classes were offered in the fourth and final year.

During his first year, T. E. was taught mathematics by John Adams Leland, a graduate of South Carolina College. The next year he left for Furman University and was replaced by Peter F. Stevens who was responsible for mathematics instruction for T.E.'s three remaining years at the Academy. Stevens was only three years older than T. E. and had himself graduated from the Academy only a few years earlier (in 1849). 

Like many college graduates, T. E. worked as a teacher after graduation. It was a fortuitous time to be looking for employment as the state's wealth (slave-based agriculture was making South Carolina one of the richest states in the Union) supported a growing educational sector. Much of the growth came from the creation of church-affiliated colleges.

T. E.'s first job was at one of the newly created church-affiliated college: Furman University in Greenville. Located in the upstate, Greenville was a small resort town of about a thousand residents, half of which were enslaved. The town had grown in significance over the 1850s. It had been connected to a railroad, and the university had been established (in 1851). The university flourished. In 1855, enrollment stood at two hundred and twenty-eight students, a sizeable portion of the town. 

Furman was associated with the Baptist church, and it offered three separate programs. Students could pursue a college preparatory program, a college program, or a program of religious studies. The college program offered coursework in Ancient Greek, Latin, and Hebrew as well as mathematics and the sciences. The program was progressive: students were allowed to select their classes rather than being required to take a fixed sequence of classes, as was traditional.

Furman University was about twice as large as the Citadel Academy. In 1855, enrollment stood at two hundred and twenty-eight students, most of whom were from the state. Only a handful were studying theology: the bulk of the students were split between the college preparatory program and the college program. They were taught by a faculty of ten. T. E. was hired as a math tutor. In that role, he was responsible for teaching college preparatory math classes.

Overall, the university had attracted an excellent faculty, many of whom had been educated at elite northern institutions. The mathematics professor was Charles Hallette Judson. Judson had been born in Connecticut and studied at Colgate University (then called the Hamilton Literary Institute) and the University of Virginia. His undergraduate degree was from the second school. He had moved to Furman as the founding mathematics professor after a few years of teaching elsewhere. Judson was an accomplished mathematician. He later published several articles in mathematical periodicals like The Analyst (a precursor to The Annals of Mathematics) However, Judson was teacher and an administrator, not a researcher. Consider his article "An Investigation of the Mathematical Relations of Zero and Infinity." The article focused on issues with treating infinity and zero, especially dividing by zero in the context of calculus. The article attracted significant attention and provoked debate between Judson and the periodical's editor. However, the discussion revolved around issuing stemming from the imprecise definition of limits in American textbooks rather than more significant theoretical issues.

After serving as tutor for two years, T. E. was promoted to adjunct professor chemistry and natural philosophy (as physics was then known). His tutorship was given to his former Citadel classmate John F. Lanneau. Like Professor Judson, the faculty member who T. E. replaced was highly accomplished. The position had been held by Charles Stockton Gaunett. Professor Gaunett had received an impressive education in the north and in Europe. He had graduated with an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1844 and then pursued additional studies in Great Britain, attending clinics at Guy's and St. Thomas's Hospitals in London and listened to chemistry lectures that Michael Faraday delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. Prior to arriving at Furman, he had worked in the chemistry lab of James B. Rogers, taught at Burlington College in New Jersey for three years, and practiced medicine. It is unclear why he left Furman, but during the Civil War, he served as an Union army surgeon.

T. E. only served as an adjunct professor at Furman for a year. He then left to pursue more advanced studies in Europe. In October, he applied for passport to travel to German, and in April 1859 he enrolled as a student at Göttingen University.

T. E. appears to have intended to study chemistry. Advanced study would improve his professional prospects. Furman appears to have only appointed permanent professors with credentials comparable to those held by Professors Gaunett and Judson. Indeed, after T. E. left the university, he was again replaced by his former classmate John F. Lanneau, but like T. E., Lanneau was appointed to an adjunct professorship. Lanneau remained in that position until the university closed during the Civil War. 

While not exactly common, it was not unheard of for South Carolinians, especially college professors, to study at German universities. At South Carolina College, math professor Charles S. Venable had studied at Berlin and Bonn. He had attended lectures by the astronomer Johann Franz Encke (a student of Gauss) as well as the mathematicians Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet and Heinrich Wilhelm Dove in Berlin. While in Bonn, he listened to astronomy lectures by Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander. James Woodrow, who would go on to serve as natural science professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, had spent two years studying at Heidelberg University. 

The year after he enrolled at Göttingen was an eventful one for T. E. In September, he moved to Heidelberg to attend university there. He also married Susan Cameron Lanneau, the sister of his former classmate and colleague John F. Lanneau. The most impactful event happened in December. On the 24th, the state of South Carolina declared that its bond to the Union was "dissolved," and it was resuming its "separate and equal place among nations." The day that Citadel cadets had been anticipating had finally arrived. In the next month, cadets would first the first shots of the war, and virtually all alumni would become embroiled in the Civil War. In a later post, we will see what happened with T. E. Hart. 

Papers by C. H. Judson

1. “Note on the Significance of the Signs + and - before the Radical √.” The Analyst 2, no. 3 (1875): 70–71.

2. “An Investigation of the Mathematical Relations of Zero and Infinity.” The Analyst 8, no. 4 (1881): 105–13.

3. Judson, C. H. “Correspondence.” The Analyst 10, no. 3 (1883): 74–75.

4. “Remark on Division of Concrete Number.” The American Mathematical Monthly 1, no. 3 (1894): 68–69. 

5. Algebra Problem 99. The American Mathematical Monthly 6, no. 3 (1899): 92.

6. Problem 114. The Mathematical Magazine I, no. 12 (October 1884): 221.

Sources

1. "Valuable land for sale." Farmers' gazette, and Cheraw advertiser. [volume], April 28, 1841, Page 96, Image 4. 

2. "The Furman University." Edgefield advertiser. [volume], December 19, 1855, Image 3

Listed as tutor in math at Furman. Math classes are taught by C. H. Judson.

3. The daily phoenix. [volume], August 11, 1869, Image 2

August 10, arrives in Columbia and stays at the National Hotel with two kids.

4. The daily phoenix. [volume], September 01, 1869, Image 2

August 31 arrives Columbia and stays at the Columbia Hotel 

5. The daily phoenix. [volume], September 14, 1869, Image 2

September 13 arrives Columbia and stays at the National Hotel 

6. "The South Carolina University." The Charleston daily news. [volume], September 20, 1869, Image 2

His hire is announced. Newspaper says "we hope to be able to say more anon."

7. "The South Carolina University." Abbeville press. [volume], September 24, 1869, Image 2

Hired announced with no details. Taken from Columbia Pheonix.

8. "Governor's Address." The Camden weekly journal, December 6, 1853, p. 1.

9. "Communications." The Lancaster ledger. [Lancaster, SC], November 28, 1855, p. 2.

10. "Our Celebration." The southern press. [Washington D.C.], July 12, 1851, p. 2.

11. "Charles Scott Venable." The Alumni Bulletin of the University of Virginia. Vol III, November 1896, No. 3. p. 59-61.

12."Chares S. Venable, LL. D." Annual Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1898-99, Volume 1. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1900. p. 795. 

The Professors of Alcorn State: Lawrence W. Minor

Lawrence W. Minor
From Friends of Eastern Cemetery

Lawrence Washburne Minor (b. Abt. 1829; d. November 5, 1880)

Louisiana. Black.
Education: Oberlin College (A.B., A.M.)
Occupation: steam-boat porter, teacher.

Lawrence W. Minor was born in Ascension Parish, Louisiana in 1880 to the planter Philip Minor and a woman he enslaved, Lucy. Lawrence was one of three children produced by Philip and Lucy. 

By the time Lawrence was born, the Minor family was well-established. They had lived in Louisiana since the area had been under Spanish rule, and they accumulated significant wealth. By 1830, there were fifty-five enslaved workers on Philip Minor's plantation. Among the slaves, Lucy's family received special treatment. At the suggestions of some of Philip's relatives, he provided Lawrence and his siblings with private tutors. Philip died when Lawrence was only seven years old (in 1836), but in his will, he emancipated Lucy's family (the only slaves freed in his will). 

Before he died, Philip had been planning on sending Lucy's children north to receive further education. In his will, he bequeathed to her a significant amount of money with the expectation that it would be used towards educating their children. 

With the money provided by Philip, Lucy and her family moved north to Ohio, a free state. In fall 1839, at ten years of age, Lawrence began attending Oberlin College. He was at the college for a decade, attending the first the college preparatory program and then the college program itself. Accounts are contradictory as to how Lawrence's time at Oberlin ended. Oberlin records document that he got a degree in 1851, but a newspaper article reported that was dismissed because he refused to apologize to a tutor with whom he had a "slight difficulty." Later, in 1873, the college would award him a M.A. degree, although this was an honorary degree rather than a degree for academic work.  

After completing his degree, Lawrence moved to New Orleans. There he worked as a teacher and opened a store. While in the city, he appears to have met with personal difficulty. In September 1851, he was assaulted by two free persons of color (James Penn and Louis Poree). According a later account, Lawrence remained in the city for three more years and then returned to Ohio. 

Lawrence settled in the city of Cincinnati, where his mother was living. Both Lawrence and his brother Philip found work as porters on steamships. Lawrence first served on a steamer that ran between the cities of Louisville and Henderson and then on one that ran between St. Louis and Cincinnati. Working on a steamer was common as Cincinnati was an important river port, but it was a somewhat unusual choice for Lawrence as his college education made him as of the best educated Black men in the city. In a newspaper interview he gave in 1871, he explained his decision: it provided him with a "comfortable subsistence," and he was forbidden by "provisions for his family" (presumably meaning arrangements between Philip's family and Lucy's) from any "political aspirations." (Steamboat porter was widely seen as an "appropriate," or less "political," occupation for a free person of color, unlike a skilled job that used Lawrence's college education.)

The General Lytle, a steamboat on which L. W. Minor worked
From the Ohio History Connection

Lawrence's status as a free person created legal difficulties for him in late November 1854. That month the steamship he was working on docked in St. Louis. After he disembarked, he came under suspicion of being an escaped slave and was temporarily imprisoned after he was unable to prove his status as a freeman. 

There is no direct account of Lawrence's activities during the Civil War, but he presumably continued to work on a steamer. His brother Patrick enlisted in the Union army. He was an officer in the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment and saw combat in Missouri and Arkansas. While serving, he contracted "maladies" which took his life.

Lawrence continued working on steamships after the end of the war. He ran into legal problems for a second time in 1870. That year, he was working as a barber on the mailboat the "General Lytle." On Sunday August 7, while the boat was traveling from Madison, Indiana to Cincinnati, it was discovered that someone had broken into a drawer used to store valuables. Missing were $100 belonging to the steamer, as well as $75 and a gold watch belonging to the boat's clerk W. T. Fenton. The clerk suspected that the items had been stolen by Lawrence and William Merrian, the boat's "colored porter." A few hours after the boat arrived in Cincinnati, Fenton reported his suspicions to the police, and two officers arrested Lawrence and William. Both were imprisoned while a police officer searched the boat. No evidence incriminating Lawrence was found, so he was released from police custody, but the missing gold watch was found hidden in William's bed, so he was detained.

Lawrence left working on the Mississippi River for higher education in 1871. That summer he was hired as Alcorn University's first professor of Greek and Latin. Course offerings in classical languages were limited, so he also became the university's English professor. It is unclear how long Lawrence remained at the university, but he had left by November 1874 as all faculty resigned in response to student protests.

Lawrence's activities immediately after leaving the university are not well-documented, but he remained in Mississippi. In 1877, he was serving as chief clerk for state government under the newly elected governor John Marshall Stone, the state's first Democratic governor since the start of Reconstruction.

Lawrence only served in the Mississippi state government for a brief period. In spring 1878, he left the state for Texas to teach at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Prairie View A&M). The college was the state's public HBCU, and it had been created two years earlier. Lawrence was hired by the college's first president, Thomas S. Gathright, who was "intimately acquainted" with him. It is unclear exactly what Lawrence's position was. Both the college's website and a contemporary newspaper article state that Lawrence was hired as president, replacing Gathright, but a report in the journal of the state senate states that Lawrence was hired as an instructor. 

The college opened its doors to students shortly after Lawrence was hired, on March 11, 1878. The college proved a failure. Only eight students arrived for classes, and the college was closed after a year. Lawrence's position was terminated in February 1879.

Lawrence remained in Texas, but he died the next year. The cause of death was "congestive chill." His remains were moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and he was buried in Eastern Cemetery in an unmarked grave.

Sources

1. "The Colored Professor." The Cairo daily bulletin., July 16, 1871, p. 3

2. "Chair in Alcorn University – From a Porter to a Professor." New Orleans Republican. [volume], July 19, 1871, Page 2, Image 2

3. Seventy-fifth Anniversary General Catalogue of Oberlin College. p. 676. 

4.The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Cincinnati Ward 1, Hamilton, Ohio; Roll: 687; Page: 49a

5.  The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Louisville Ward 8, Jefferson, Kentucky; Roll: M653_376; Page: 764; Family History Library Film: 803376

6. The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Cincinnati Ward 1, Hamilton, Ohio; Roll: 687; Page: 49a

6. The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Louisville Ward 8, Jefferson, Kentucky; Roll: M653_376; Page: 764; Family History Library Film: 803376

6. Year: 1880; Census Place: Precinct 1, Waller, Texas; Roll: 1331; Page: 400B; Enumeration District: 158

7. "River and Weather." Nashville union and American, August 10, 1870, p. 4.

8. "General Directory" The Daily clarion, January 11, 1877, p. 1.

9. The weekly democratic statesman. [Austin, TX], February 28, 1878, p. 2.

10. Journal of the State Senate of Texas.

The conservative response to Reconstruction in Chesterfield

In the blogpost "Reconstruction in Chesterfield County," I discussed how Republicans first came to political power with the 1867 election of delegates to a constitutional convention (which Congress had required as a precondition to restoring civil government). Ultimately, they came to power because most conservative voters followed the (ultimately unsuccessful) state-wide strategy of boycotting the election in hope of defeating the Congress's plans to force southern states to enfranchise freedmen. However, this outcome was not inevitable. A majority of voters in Chesterfield were white, and some counties with similar majorities were able to elect conservative delegates. Here we take a closer look at how the election played out. 

State-wide, most conservative leaders urged their supporters to boycott the election convention delegates. By doing so, they hoped to defeat efforts to restore civil government with the expectation that Congress would respond by offering restoration under milder terms (for example, allowing the continued disenfranchisement of freedmen). Representative of attitudes was that of former governor Benjamin Perry who urged voters to boycott the election because "nothing worse than negro suffrage and a negro government can be forced upon us." 

Chesterfield county was unusual in that, at least initially, local conservative leaders did not participate in the boycott. Instead, they not only proposed delegates, but they even tried to reach out to Black voters, although, as shall see, there were limits to what conservatives were willing to accept.

Chesterfield voters organized a public meeting to deliberate on the convention vote on October 8, about a month before the vote was held. The meeting was not organized on behalf either political party, and while one newspaper described the participants as "conservative voters," it was attended by ex-Union soldiers and freed slaves as well as former Confederate soldiers and enslaver. Despite the political conflict between these groups, the newspaper reported that "utmost harmony and good feelings" were maintained throughout the meeting.

A study of the meeting participants shows the depth of the accomplishment. The meeting began with opening remarks offered by L. Charles Inglis, a young stalwart of local conservatives. He was the son of John A. Inglis, a wealthy planter/lawyer who had not only served in the state legislature but had even played a lead role in drafting South Carolina's Ordinance of Secession. L. Charles himself was well-positioned to take over his father's role: he was a lawyer and a Confederate veteran, both valuable credentials for an aspiring conservative politician in South Carolina.

The president of the meeting was J. H. Gooch. He isn't as well-documented as Inglis, and he later worked with Republican politicians, but at the time, he appears to have been a conservative. Gooch had grown up on a farm in North Carolina, but after the war, he became active in South Carolina politics. The previous year he had been elected to serve the unexpired term of a state congressman (M. J. Hough) who had resigned after being elected district judge. U.S. Congress had restored military rule before he was seated, but his election was an indication that he was well-regarded by conservatives.

Meeting participants also included men who had led the state during the Antebellum. Former state congressman Hugh Craig was elected to serve as meeting secretary. Craig was a sixty-year old man from a distinguished family. His ancestors had built the first house in Chesterfield Court House, and his father had fought in the Revolutionary War. Hugh had spent most of his life as a Methodist minister, but he had also served three terms in the state congress. He appears to have supported the Confederacy: he had owned two slaves (an elderly man and woman) and his son James had served in the Confederate army. However, his political loyalties at the time of the meeting aren't entirely clear. By the next year, he had become supportive of the Republican Party, eventually receiving a gubernatorial appointment and two nominations to the county Republican ticket. 

Black men also participated in the meeting. The vice president of the meeting was Lisbon Arthur, a Black man who later was active in the Republican Party and twice served as chairman of the county party. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any further information about him.

The meeting resulted in a resolution that recognized the new political rights of freedmen, albeit in a form that was limited enough to be palatable to local conservatives. The preamble to the resolution not only recognized that U.S. Congress had granted freedmen the right to vote, it even acknowledged the need for "harmony between the two races" and that it was incumbent on the "white people" to "prove [their] disposition" to freedmen. However, these sentiments were expressed in a paternalistic, and slightly menacing, manner that reaffirmed the power of the county's traditional elites: also included in the preamble was the observation that white voters outnumbered freedmen and thus they held the power to elect an entire ticket. 

The most substantial concession to freedmen was that one of the two men elected as delegates to the constitutional convention was to be a Black man. On the issue of legislative representatives, the resolution was weaker. Candidates for state legislature were all to be white men. Support was expressed for the election of Black men to the U.S. senate seat and at least one of the seats in the U.S. House, but this measure was less an expression of support for freedmen and more an acknowledgement of political reality. While white voters formed a majority of voters in Chesterfield County, Black voters were a majority in the larger congressional district and could win elections without support from white voters. Despite these limitations, when the resolution is read alongside statements by other South Carolina conservatives declaring that "negro suffrage" would be an unbearable tyranny, it is a remarkably liberal document.

The responsibility of selecting nominees to represent Chesterfield at the constitutional convention was assigned to an eight-person committee appointed by the meeting president. That committee was also responsible for nominating a bi-racial sixteen-person committee that was charged with promoting the election of the chosen nominees within their communities. 

The committees included a number of men who were the type of planter/lawyers who'd been prominent during the antebellum. Hugh Craig served on one committee as did former state congressman and district judge M. J. Hough, a practicing lawyer. Committee member G. W. Duvall was the son of a major family of Maryland planters, and he had maintained his own plantation in Chesterfield with help from twenty-nine enslaved workers. Many of the white committee members were former Confederate army officers. M. J. Hough had been a captain in the Confederate army, and other former officers included Neil F. Graham, Theodore F. Malloy, and John Evans.

Information about the Black committee members is harder to come by. Lisbon Arthur served on the committee, and other members included Plenty Jefferson and Andrew McFarland, both of whom worked as farm laborers. Certainly, the most prominent Black member was Henry J. Maxwell. His inclusion is strong evidence of conservatives willingness to cooperate with their political opponents. Maxwell was from a family of free persons of color who lived in the South Carolina Sea Islands. He had fought in the Union army during the war and then moved to Chesterfield to work for the Freedmen's Bureau. 

The men that the committee put forward as the proposed delegates to the constitutional convention were W. Augustus Evans and a man known either as J. J. Johnson or David Johnson. (Both names are given in newspaper accounts.) W. Augustus Evans was the son of a successful Chesterfield planter (Albert Evans). He had served in the Confederate army, and during peacetime, he worked as a farmer and merchant. It is harder to be certain about "Johnson" because of the confusion over his first name. Newspaper records only describe him as a "colored man" from Cheraw. He may be D. J. J. Johnson, one of the men who was elected to state congress in the next year. 

What's most notable about the committee members is who is not included. Completely absent was R. J. Donaldson. Donaldson would be elected as a convention delegate and then as a state senator. Two of the attendees, D. J. J. Johnson and H. L. Shrewsbury, would later be elected on Republican tickets that included Donaldson. It is unclear if this indicates that they were political allies of Donaldson; they inclusion could have part of a compromise between rival factions within the Republican Party. Shrewsbury was more moderate than Donaldson, and the two had become political opponents by 1870.

Donaldson was also connected to J. H. Gooch, although through questionable circumstances. A year or so after the November meeting (in 1869), Gooch, with help from Donaldson (then a state senator) sold land to the state land commission. The commission was widely regarded as corrupt, and politicians charged it with frequently purchasing worthless land at inflated prices from unscrupulous politically-connected individuals. 

The land that Gooch sold was a five-hundred acre plot that had been the cotton plantation of Colonel W. J. Ellerbe. In the antebellum, Ellerbe had been a successful planter who ran his farm with help from fifty enslaved workers. Gooch had purchased the land Commissioner in Equity sale, perhaps land seized by the state government because of delinquent taxes (Emancipation left many planters like Ellerbe bankrupt). Gooch purchased the land for ten thousand dollars and then sold it to the land commission a year later for the same amount. Gooch lost money in the transaction. He only received seven thousand, seven hundred, and seventy-five dollars. Donaldson took two hundred and twenty-five dollars for himself and gave two thousand to "parties in Columbia for their approval" (a polite way to describe a bribe to legislators). 

The conservatives' electoral plan that was laid out at the October meeting was ultimately unsuccessful. Both Johnson and W. Augustus Evans lost the election for delegates to the constitutional convention, and Chesterfield ended up being represented by R. J. Donaldson and H. L. Shrewsbury. The election returns (which we recalled in "Reconstruction in Chesterfield County") clearly indicate what happened. The vote split along racial lies with Black voters largely voting for a convention with Republican delegates and white voters largely either voting against the election or abstaining altogether. Less clear is how this came to be.

On election day, conservatives appears to have abandoned the plan proposed at the October meeting and instead supported the state-wide plan to oppose holding a constitutional convention. There are no records of deliberations of the Donaldson or others within the county Republican Party appear to have been preserved, but it certainly would not have been difficult for Donaldson to make a compelling argument to voters. The argument that freedmen shouldn't be represented in the legislature by the very men who had fought a civil war to keep them enslaved hardly needed to be made, and Donaldson's political plans could even be made compelling to white voters. With financial support from northern investors, he was planning to develop northwestern Chesterfield. Especially important was his plans to build a railroad connecting  Chesterfield to Charlotte and Charleston as this a rail line would help landowning farmers ship their cash crops to markets.

In any case, the vote on holding a constitutional convention marked a major change in county politics. Donaldson election as convention delegate marked his political rise. He almost immediately became a figure of hatred by conservatives, and they quickly rallied around efforts to remove him and his supporters. Although their hatred of Donaldson was only partially related to race (he was accused of "sowing the seeds of dissension between ... the races," but this was only one of a number of their complaints), their fights with him killed any hope of racial reconciliation. Conservatives focused on overthrowing the Reconstruction government, and after they succeeded, they denied Blacks from meaningful political power for generations.

Sources

1. "Election of Representatives." The daily phoenix. [volume], November 18, 1866, p. 2.

2. "State Items." The Charleston daily news. [volume], January 28, 1867, Image 1

3. "Letter from Hon. B. F. Perry." The daily phoenix. [volume], May 30, 1867, Image 2

4. Reports of State Officers, Boards and Committees to the General Assembly

The Professors of Alcorn State: John R. Blackburn

John R. Blackburn
From badahustory

John Randall Blackburn (b. April 1, 1841; d. May 30, 1937)

Virginia. Mulatto.
Education: Dartmouth College
Occupation: teacher

John R. Blackburn was born in Essex County, Virginia. The relationship between John's parents was highly unusual. His father William Blackburn was a successful farmer who used enslaved labor. In 1830, his household included twenty-six enslaved workers, one of whom was John's mother Francis (or Fanny). While it was not unusual for a white farmer to impregnate an enslaved woman, Williams was unusually supportive of Francis. He emancipated her family and moved with them to Ohio, a free state. They were living in Cincinnati in 1850. By 1860, William had left the family and returned to his farm in Virginia. However, a Blackburn family history says that he continued to support Francis financially, although Francis also worked as a washerwoman.

While John's father William freed Francis's family, he continued to hold over twenty other people in bondage. However, upon his death in 1861, he freed his slaves and even included several of them in his will. (An enslaved woman named Betsy received two thousand dollars, a substantial sum).  

John was privately educated in Cincinnati and at Dartmouth College. He attended the college from 1859 to June 1861. He left before completing his college degree because he was offered the position of principal of the "colored" public schools in the town of Xenia, Ohio. He resigned from the position in July 1871 in order to accept a professorship at the newly opened Alcorn University in Mississippi. He served as the university's mathematics professor for two years, until July 1873. He then returned to Xenia, Ohio to continue teaching in the public schools. John was widely held in high regard as an educator. He served as a trustee for both Ohio University (from fall 1885 to spring 1892) and Wilberforce University. The trusteeship at Ohio University was made by Governor Hoadly.

John left Ohio in 1899 and moved to Evansville, Indiana to serve as principal of Clark High School. He remained there for several years, but by 1910, he had returned to Cincinnati and was working as a public-school teacher. He first taught at the town of Lockland and then at the McCall Industrial School in Cincinnati. He retired in 1926 and died of natural causes eleven years later, in 1937. He is buried in Cherry Grove Cemetery in Xenia, Ohio.

The Blackburn family papers are held by Howard University.

Sources

1) Scales, John (Eds.). (1903) Biographical Sketches of the Class of 1863 Dartmouth College with Historical Memoranda of the College, 1859-1863. Published by the class. p. 490-491.

2) The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M432; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Cincinnati Ward 6, Hamilton, Ohio; Roll: 689; Page: 77a.

2) The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Hanover, Grafton, New Hampshire; Roll: M653_671; Page: 1058; Family History Library Film: 803671

3) Year: 1870; Census Place: Xenia, Greene, Ohio; Roll: M593_1205; Page: 358A

4) Year: 1880; Census Place: Xenia, Greene, Ohio; Roll: 1020; Page: 492A; Enumeration District: 093

5) Year: 1900; Census Place: Pigeon, Vanderburgh, Indiana; Roll: 407; Page: 8; Enumeration District: 0127; FHL microfilm: 1240407

6) Year: 1910; Census Place: Cincinnati Ward 3, Hamilton, Ohio; Roll: T624_1189; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 0041; FHL microfilm: 1375202.

7) Year: 1920; Census Place: Cincinnati Ward 4, Hamilton, Ohio; Roll: T625_1389; Page: 2A; Enumeration District: 84.

8) Year: 1930; Census Place: Cincinnati, Hamilton, Ohio; Page: 4B; Enumeration District: 0027; FHL microfilm: 2341541

9) Year: 1830; Census Place: Essex, Virginia; Series: M19; Roll: 193; Page: 123; Family History Library Film: 0029672

10) The National Archive in Washington Dc; Washington, DC; NARA Microform Publication: M432; Title: Seventh Census of the United States, 1850; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29

11) The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Essex, Virginia; Roll: M653_1343; Page: 674; Family History Library Film: 805343

12) The National Archives in Washington D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29; Series Number: M653; Residence Date: 1860; Home in 1860: Cincinnati Ward 6, Hamilton, Ohio; Roll: M653_972; Page: 8; Family History Library Film: 803972

13) "Ohio Appointments." Democratic Northwest. [volume], April 30, 1885, Image 5

14) "Services." The Dayton forum. [volume], June 04, 1937, Image 2

"Intellectual Freedom is here:" Alcorn University

The Mississippi state legislature created Alcorn University, Mississippi's first public HBCU, on May 13, 1871. The act was part of a broader program to expand public education within the state. I've had a hard time tracking down deliberations, but the decision to create the university appears to have been a compromise between the "radical" and moderate wings of the Republican Party. 

Providing a university education to qualified Black residents was a political necessity for Republican politicians. Despite being largely part of the frontier, Mississippi had long offered an elite education for white residents via the University of Mississippi. Not offering comparable educational opportunities to Black voters was politically unsustainable as the state had one of the largest Black majorities (55% of voters). The more "radical" wing of the state Republican Party supported forced racial integration of the University of Mississippi, and some preliminary steps were made in this direction. Once Republicans rose to power during congressional Reconstruction, one of their first acts was to re-organize the university. Among other changes, the governor was able to appoint a new Board of Trustees, and in the summer of 1871, he appointed Republicans to a majority of seats. The new appointments were a major step towards remaking the university as the trustees held the power to dismiss faculty members, many of whom were conservatives who had long taught at the university and were opposed to teaching Black students. 

Predictably, the prospect of integrating the university was an anathema to conservative Democrats. Although Republicans held political power, they were led by Governor James L. Alcorn, a white moderate who had been a slave-owning planter before the war. Alcorn and his supporters appear to have also opposed integrating the University of Mississippi, so they instead threw their support behind the creation of a second university for Black students. The result was the creation of Alcorn University.

The legislature generously endowed Alcorn University. Three-fifths of the funding Mississippi had received from federal government via the Morrell Act (which amounted to $113,400) went to Alcorn, and an additional $50,000 per year was provided from state funds. The responsibility for using these funds to establish the university was given to Hiram Revels, the university's first president. 

Revels was one of the most prominent Black politicians in 1870s. A Union veteran who had been born in North Carolina and raised in Ohio, he had moved to Mississippi after the Civil War to serve as pastor at an AME church in Natchez. He entered politics at the start of Congressional Reconstruction. At the time, Alcorn University was created, Revels was serving as a U.S. senator. He resigned the senate seat to become president of Alcorn University.

Revels was a moderate Republican and a close political ally of Alcorn University's namesake, James L. Alcorn. One of Revels's first duties was selecting a location for the new university. Originally, a location in Adams County, near the city of Natchez, was considered, but Revels ultimately chose to locate the campus forty miles northwest, in a rural part of Jefferson County. The location was that of a defunct Presbyterian-affiliated college (Oakland University) which Revels was able to purchase.

The campus consisted of the president's house, three dormitories, a dining hall, two halls that had housed campus literary societies, and several cottages. The novelist Chester Himes lived on the campus as a child in the 1910s, and he described a fictionalized version of the campus in his novel The Third Generation:

The college had originally been built for white students. But some years past, through a political deal, it had been turned over to Negroes. Traces of its former charm still remained.

The original buildings had formed a horseshoe about a spacious campus of shade trees dotting a level lawn. They were built of bricks and adorned by the tremendous, two-storied verandas supported by tall marble pillars which had become the architectural landmark of the old South.

At the curve of the horseshoe, overlooking the campus, stood College Hall with its thirty-three marble steps, then in bad decay, ascending to its pillared veranda. A beautifully designed wrought-iron railing, which had been imported from Italy, enclosed the staircase, and some of the original stained-glass windows still remained in the assembly hall where now church services were held.

To one side was the president's residence, a large white colonial structure with landscaped lawn and flower garden. The architect who designed it never dreamed that a Negro would once inherit it. 

Himes's "College Hall" is likely a stand-in for Oakland Memorial Chapel.

Oakland Memorial Chapel

Interior of Oakland Memorial Chapel

Revels purchased the old college campus in July. That month he also hired Alcorn University faculty. Lawrence W. Minor was hired as professor of Ancient Greek and Latin, John G. Mitchell as professor of agricultural chemistry and mineralogy, and John Blackburn as professor of mathematics and natural philosophy (i.e. science). All the men were well-educated. Minor and Mitchell had attended Oberlin College, while Blackburn had attended Dartmouth College.

All faculty members were Black. The number of college-educated Blacks in the United States was minuscule, so the racial make-up of the faculty likely reflected a conscious decision to try and placate Mississippi conservatives by avoiding a racially integrated campus.

In many respects, the professors were unlike the students they were charged with teaching. The vast majority of the college-age Black residents of Mississippi were former slaves who had grown up in rural areas. In contrast, Revels and Mitchells had been free before the war. Blackburn and Minor had been enslaved, but their fathers' had been their enslavers, and they had enjoyed lives of relatively privilege: each had been emancipated before the Civil War broke out and had received significant financial support from his father.

The first students arrived at Alcorn University around February 1872. A correspondent, publishing under the pen name "Don Carlos," described his visit to the National New Era newspaper. In his letter, he emphasized how the university reflected the changed nature of the post-war south: "The chapel bell which but a few years ago summoned the aristocratic Southerner to his duty, . . . now finds an echo in the chimes in the joyous hearts of a thousand new-born freemen." 

Campus map from a 1982 National Register of Historic Places Inventory.
National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form

Don Carlos's optimism for Mississippi's future is expressed eloquently in his description of the campus:

The "campus" is gently undulating from all points of this half circle towards the centre and front. It is covered with a forest of grand and proud oaks, festooned in the mossy drapery of nature, and rearing their lofty heads to the skies, in mute adoration of the new liberty over which they are now guardians. Truly, these old oaks themselves must open their sap veins and weep tears of joy at the sight which they now behold. As you pass into the "campus" through a spacious archway at either end of the semicircle, the tiny tendrils of the overhanging moss cling to the passer by and whisper in his ear the gladsome news – "Intellectual Freedom is here." 

Belles Lettres

President's House

Chapel and President's House

Classes began about a month after "Don Carlos" wrote his letter. Unfortunately, there is little information about the students and what they were taught. There were about forty students during the first year, and this expanded to over a hundred by the second year. Mississippi lacked both urban centers and a significant pre-war population of free people of color, the natural sources for college students. This was alleviated somewhat by financial support. Tuition was free for students, and each county was allowed to award three student scholarships which provided $100 each year.

The initial educational offerings were standard for an American university at the time. The university offered a two-year college preparatory program and two separate four-year college programs: a "classical" track and a "scientific" track. The "classical" track offered a fixed program that strongly emphasized the study of Ancient Greek and Latin but also included courses on mathematics, science, and English. The "scientific" track replaced the Ancient Greek and Latin with courses on modern European languages (French and Germany) as well as practical topics like navigation and free drawing. At least on paper, the university expanded its offerings in its third year and added courses on agriculture and mechanical engineering. It appears, however, that not all classes listed in the university catalogues were offered. A July 1873 article in the New National Era, a newspaper sympathetic to the university, published a letter from a trustee reporting that the teaching was mostly "elementary or preparatory" but more advanced courses in algebra, geometry, and Latin had also been offered. A more critical report written by state legislators in February 1875 stated that most of the classes offered were elementary courses in English grammar, arithmetic, geometry and reading, although the legislators had visited the campus during a chaotic period when teaching had been disrupted.

An account of the July 1873 commencement exercises by a trustee provides a look at the atmosphere on campus. The event was attended by the trustees, the university's namesake James L. Alcorn (then a U.S. senator), Governor Ridgley C. Powers, and a number of state congressmen and senators. After exams were complete, Alcorn gave a speech, and the next day sixteen of the most accomplished students delivered public speeches, declamations and orations. The titles indicate an effort by students to connect with American history. The student Edward Moffit gave a speech titled "A Supposed Speech of John Adams," while George H. Johnson honored Republican politician Daniel Webster with a speech on the "Last Hours of Webster." A. B. Barnes spoke a contemporary political issue: the "Importance of the Union." Other speeches like "Classical Writers of Athens" and "Last Hours of Socrates," displayed students' knowledge of classical western culture. Notably, there were no speeches about "uplift" (e.g. the dangers of alcohol or the importance of hard work and thrift) as became common at schools like Booker T. Washington's Tuskegee Institute. Also absent were any speeches with an overtly controversial theme.

Commencement ended with a speech by the governor. Governor Powers was an Ohioan who had fought for the Union during the Civil War. He had moved to Mississippi after the war to try and earn a living planting cotton. He had been elected as Alcorn's lieutenant governor but became governor after Alcorn resigned to accept a senate seat. Powers was a moderate Republican. Politically, he needed Black votes to hold political power, but he also needed cheap Black labor to profitably run his cotton plantation.

Powers's speech reveals the much of the contours of his support for his Black constituents. He expressed his full support for Black higher education and even indicated that they had tremendous potential: "Because Caesar and Napoleon, Homer and Virgil, Bacon, Shakespeare, and Milton all had white faces it did not prove but a greater than them all might still yet exist with a black face." Alcorn University, he said, was giving them the "key of knowledge," and he encouraged them to use it to unlock the treasurers of art and science.

The governor told those assembled that their university education would open up many professional opportunities, but he discouraged them from entering politics because it was a "uncertain and unsatisfactory" profession. He also emphasized that the students needed to balance their academic education with moral training because "perverted knowledge increase the power of doing evil, and leads to degradation." He encouraged them to show charity and work to defend and uplift others. 

Powers concluding his speech by predicting great success for Alcorn University. Unfortunately, his prediction was not realized, and the university collapsed into chaos only a year later. Problems first arose during the summer of 1873 when the state legislature sent a joint special committee to investigate conditions on the campus. The committee found that food services and housing were poorly maintained. Over the winter, two students had even died of meningitis. They also criticized the coursework as being too elementary and recommended more strict regulation of student admissions. 

The problems the committee reported appear to have persisted.  Professors Blackburn and Mitchell left the university in the middle of 1873. They were replaced by George R. Vashon, another graduate of Oberlin, and Douglass Carr Griffin, a Dartmouth graduate. Unfortunately, the situation continued to deteriorate. 

Dormitory #3

Dormitory #2

Events on campus are poorly documented, but a major issue appears to have been conflict between the students and university officials, especially the treasurer and superintendent Samuel J. Ireland. Ireland was responsible was responsible for campus food and housing arrangements, one of the main problems that the 1873 committee had reported. Students also charged that some professors engaged in profanity, lewdness, and drunkenness.

The superintendent also fought with President Revels, and the conflict concluded with Revels's  July 1, 1874 resignation. Revels was well-liked by many students, so his removal inflamed tensions on campus.

Revels removal reflected state-wide political conflict. In the 1873 election, the Republican Party had split into two factions: one dominated by Black voters and newcomers from the north, and another one dominated by southern Republicans and moderate democrats. James Alcorn, the university's namesake and an ally of Revels, ran as the second faction's gubernatorial candidate. He was defeated by Adelbert Ames. Ames was the one who removed Revels, partially as a way to take power from a political opponent. The negative press coverage of events at Alcorn University may have been, in part, an effort to attack Alcorn, a weakened political figure. 

Regards of the origins of the campus conflict, it became very serious in October 1874. Many students refused to attend recitations for two weeks and asked the executive committee of the board of trustees to remove Superintendent Ireland and three professors (who were not named by the press). Students charged that some faculty were engaging in profanity, lewdness, and drunkenness. 

Exactly what transpired is unclear. Some accounts state that the students protested by walking out in a gentlemanly manner, and the only act of violence was the cutting off of the tail of a trustee's horse. However, some politicians reported that the matter was much more serious. State congressman James Cessor told the legislature that the student protest was beginning to break out into violence. According to him, some students were injuring those who supported the faculty, and they had even threatened professors with pistols. Two conservative senators, William Henry Haywood Tison and R. H. Allen, proposed requesting that the President send troops to suppress the "rebellion" at the university, although this proposal appears to have been made with tongue-in-cheek as a criticism of federal military intervention in the south.  (Federal troops had recently been sent to Vicksburg to quell a riot, an act that angered many conservatives.) In any case, many legislators were outraged at the situation at the university. Senator William H. Gray, a Black Republican, said reports showed that the university was "a sink hole of iniquity and a gambling hell" where "the students are treated like faro banks than in a college." To address the situation, the legislature formed a joint special committee to form an investigation. 

The investigative committee reported on conditions at the university in February 1875. By the time the committee had arrived on campus, things had settled down. The trustees had requested resignations of all faulty and immediately accepted the resignations of three (presumably the three who were the focus of student anger). This placated the students, although many had left the university. The trustees reported that only about sixty students, mostly from families in the area, remained. The investigative committee did not report any accounts of violence, but a number of students complained about the superintendent, and they confirmed some of the charges against the faculty. 

In March 1875, following committee advice, the legislature discharged all the faculty, removed all officers, abolished the office of treasurer, and empowered the governor to remove trustees. The university remained open but only as a college preparatory school.

Even more dramatic changes took place in November. Following wide-spread political violence, conservative Democrats won an overwhelming electoral victory over the Republican government that had been in power. This marked the end of Reconstruction in Mississippi. For generations, conservative Democrats would remain in political power, and African American residents would be almost wholly removed from political life. 

Despite these setbacks, Alcorn University continued to exist, and Hiram Revels was even re-appointed as president. However, it was a changed institution. A comparison of the 1872 description of campus by "Don Carlos" with the Chester Himes's later description vividly illustrates the nature of the changes. Where campus once had symbolized hopes to create a society where freedmen could take leading roles alongside former planter aristocrats, it became a symbol of lost antebellum prosperity and the degraded state of a Black population oppressed by segregation. 

Faculty

1. Hyram R. Revels (1872–74)

2. Lawrence W. Minor (1872–74)

3. John G. Mitchell (1872–73)

4. John R. Blackburn (1872–73)

5. George B. Vashon (1873-74) 

6. Douglas Carr Griffing (1874)

7. Charles H. Thompson (1874)

Sources

1. "Personal." The Portland daily press. [volume], May 25, 1871, Image 2

2. The weekly Caucasian. [Lexington, Mo.], June 17, 1871, Image 2

3. Memphis daily appeal. [volume], June 17, 1871, Image 2

4. "A Life in Life." Nashville union and American. [volume], July 12, 1871, Image 1

5. The weekly Caucasian. [Lexington, Mo], July 15, 1871, Image 2

6. "The Colored Professor." The Cairo daily bulletin. [Cairo, Il], July 16, 1871, Image 3

7. "The State." Macon beacon. [Macon, Miss], July 22, 1871, Image 3

8. The weekly clarion. [Jackson, Miss.], August 17, 1871, Image 1

9. New Orleans Republican. [New Orleans, Louisiana], January 06, 1872, Image 1

10. "Governor's Message." The weekly clarion. [Jackson, Miss.], January 11, 1872, Image 1

11. "The Misappropriation of the Proceeds of the Agricultural Land Scrip." The weekly clarion. [volume], February 22, 1872, Image 2

12. "Letters from Mississippi." New national era. [Washington, D.C.], March 07, 1872, Image 1

13. "Items from Mississippi." New national era. [volume], April 04, 1872, Image 3

 

14. "'Alcorn University' in its True Light." New national era. [volume], May 02, 1872, Image 1

15. "Mississippi for Grant." New national era. [volume], May 16, 1872, Image 1

16. Chicago tribune. [volume], August 05, 1872, Page 4, Image 4

17. "The Martyr." The weekly clarion. [volume], January 09, 1873, Image 2

18. "The Governor's Message." The weekly clarion. [volume], January 30, 1873, Image 2

19. American citizen. [volume], February 08, 1873, Image 2

20. "Congratulations." The weekly clarion. [volume], February 13, 1873, Image 2

21. "Letter from Mississippi." New national era. [volume], March 20, 1873, Image 1

22. "Mismanagement of Alcorn University." The weekly clarion. [volume], April 10, 1873, Image 1

23. "Legislatures." Memphis daily appeal. [volume], April 11, 1873, Image 1

24. The Magnolia gazette. [volume], May 02, 1873, Image 1

25. New national era. [volume], June 19, 1873, Image 2

26. "Commencement at Alcorn University." New national era. [volume], July 24, 1873, Image 1

27. The daily dispatch. [volume], September 05, 1873, Image 3

28. "General News." Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel], September 06, 1873, Image 2

29. The Potter journal and news item. [volume], September 24, 1873, Image 4

30. Memphis daily appeal. [volume], December 26, 1873, Image 1

31. "Personal." New Orleans Republican. [volume], April 09, 1874, Image 1

32. "Prof. Geo. B. Vashon." New national era. [volume], July 02, 1874, Image 2

33. "Current Paragraphs: Religious and Educational" Knoxville journal. [volume], July 23, 1874, Image 3

34. "Ireland's Tammany Tricks at Alcorn University" The weekly clarion. [volume], August 13, 1874, Image 2.

35. "The University Purchases – A Card from S. J. Ireland." The weekly clarion. [volume], August 20, 1874, Image 2

36. American citizen. [Canton, Miss], September 26, 1874, Image 2

37. The weekly clarion. [volume], November 19, 1874, Image 3

38. The weekly Louisianian. [New Orleans, La.], November 21, 1874, Image 3

39. New Orleans Republican. [New Orleans, La.], November 22, 1874, Page 4, Image 4

40. The Daily clarion. [volume], January 13, 1875, Image 2

41. "Notes from the Capitol." The Daily clarion. [volume], January 18, 1875, Image 2

42. "A Lively Time Over the Alcorn University Matter." The Daily clarion. [volume], February 02, 1875, Image 2

42. "Notes from the Capitol." The Daily clarion. [volume], February 05, 1875, Image 2

43. "Alcorn University." The Daily clarion. [volume], February 27, 1875, Image 2

44. "House – Forty-Sixth Day." The weekly clarion. [volume], March 04, 1875, Image 3

45. "The Alcorn University Bill." The weekly clarion. [volume], March 11, 1875, Image 4

46. National Republican, June 30, 1875, Image 4

47. "Alcorn University." The Greenville times. [volume], July 03, 1875, Image 1

48. "An Apostate to His Race." National Republican., December 27, 1875, Image 1

49. "Alcorn University." The weekly clarion. [volume], January 12, 1876, Image 1

50. "Letters from Oberlin, Ohio." New national era, November 23, 1871, p. 1.