Aftermath of the Civil War
Erika Lindemann
Together with other states in the
South,
North Carolina was devastated by the
Civil
War. The loss of life touched virtually every family. The practice of
organizing military units with troops from the same town meant that some
communities no longer had any surviving young men, all of them having died in
the same battle. Of the 3.5 million men who fought in the
Civil War,
on both sides, 620,000 died. One in ten
Confederate soldiers
had come from
North Carolina. Of the 125,000
North Carolinians who
fought for the
Confederacy and the 8,000 who joined the
Union
army, 20,000 died in combat. Another 20,000 succumbed to injuries.
University students, of course, were among these statistics.
"Of the 1592 UNC alumni alive when the
war began, 1060 served in the
Confederate forces" (
Vickers 64). Over 300 died.
Another thirty residents of
Chapel Hill also lost their lives. Among the
many who lamented their deaths was
Kemp Plummer Battle
, who had himself lost two
brothers in the
war. The historian who eventually became president of the
University knew many of these students and their families:
Probably no community in the
South took deeper interest in the military
operations than
Chapel Hill. No community experienced more acute griefs
on account of the tragedies of battlefields and hospitals. The inhabitants
were so few that the students were known to all, either personally or by
reputation. Their careers were watched with the interest which followed the
movements of near friends and brothers. Great was the joy over victories and
promotions of "our boys" to higher rank for gallantry in
fighting or talent in strategy or tactics. And then came the gloom and the
tears over the killed and wounded, sometimes over the mournful burials of
bodies brought home (
1:745).
Each debating society subsequently memorialized its dead
by printing in its directory a "Roll of
Confederate Dead," listing not only its own members but
also those students belonging to the rival society.
Apart from the loss of life, considerable as it was, southerners experienced
other immeasurable consequences of a
war fought in their towns and the surrounding
countryside. Property damage was extensive, if not in
Chapel Hill, elsewhere
throughout the
South. Many political leaders and potential leaders had been killed
or remained prisoners of war.
Gov. Vance
was arrested by Federal authorities in
Statesville,
NC, on his thirty-first birthday and was imprisoned in
Washington,
DC, until July 1865. The economy was in shambles. The
University, which had invested in
Confederate securities and bank stocks, now found them worthless.
The
institution was over $100,000 in debt
and $7, 000 in arrears for faculty salaries (
Battle 1:754). Because most
families could ill afford to send their sons to college, tuition receipts were
not forthcoming. Many of
Chapel Hill's stores and boarding houses, so
dependent on students to sustain them, went out of business. Slaves whose labor
had supported the local economy were now free, and many left their former
masters. Other
blacks worked out arrangements to be paid for their work or rented
land to farm. For those former slaves whose owners could not afford to employ
them, the future held a level of poverty deeper than that experienced by whites.
The assassination of
President Lincoln also prompted great uncertainty about the future.
People knew that the
Confederacy was finished, but they did
not know what would take its place.
Lincoln's plan, tentatively designed, was to accept the
seceded states back into the
Union as quickly and as easily as
possible, and
President Johnson attempted to follow
Lincoln's intention. With
Gov. Vance
in
prison,
Johnson
appointed
William Woods Holden
as provisional governor of
North
Carolina on May 29, 1865. Supported by
Federal troops who continued to occupy
North
Carolina until 1877,
Holden
called for a convention to nullify the
ordinance of secession, abolish slavery, and repudiate the
Confederate debt. These actions were taken in October 1865,
but developing a new state constitution proved to be a difficult task. Voters
rejected the constitution drafted in 1866, some people objecting to provisions
that disenfranchised
blacks, others protesting the cancellation of wartime
debts. A new constitution would not be approved until 1868.
Meanwhile,
Gov.
Swain
attempted to keep the
University from
going under. He applied for Federal funds legislated by the
Morrill Act
of 1862, but was unable to claim them until
North Carolina had been
readmitted to the
Union. In Fall 1865 twenty-two students enrolled, but by
Spring 1866 the students damaged the
University's standing
when the commencement ball managers selected some of the most conspicuous
Confederate leaders—including
Confederate
President
Davis,
Gen. Robert E. Lee, and
ex-Gov. Zebulon B. Vance
—as honorary
managers. Though the students consulted neither the faculty nor the honorees in
making their selection,
Swain
was able to do little more than discuss the
matter with the
trustees, who agreed that the selections were in
poor taste. Having weakened his political base with conservatives by allowing
his daughter to marry a Yankee,
Swain
now found himself at the head of an
institution that appeared hostile to rejoining the
Union.
There were only three graduates in the class of 1866, but four additional
students, whose studies had been interrupted by the
war, received honorary BA
degrees (
Battle 1:753).
Foreseeing the collapse of the
University,
Professor John
Kimberly
left
Chapel Hill in early 1866 to become a farmer
in
Asheville,
NC.
Fall 1866 saw enrollments increase to
seventy-five students, and by Spring 1867, ninety-one students were
present. Some of these students had interrupted their educations to join the
army and were resuming their studies, sobered by their experiences during the
war
and uncertain about what the future might hold for them. Others were
enthusiastic about college life, describing with pleasure their life on the
Hill, which included the new sport of baseball, popularized by the
war.
1 As
"The Legend of Chapel Hill,
1866" reveals, students had not forgotten how to play pranks
on the faculty. Written in King James English,
"The Legend" tells the story of unfortunate
Professor Hildreth
Smith
, whose students tried to blow him up in his classroom [see
this primary document].
On March 14, 1867,
Professor James Phillips
died suddenly, falling to the
floor of the chapel where he had gone to conduct morning prayers [see
this primary document].
Phillips
had
taught mathematics and astronomy for over forty years, and townspeople, the
faculty, and the students all expressed deep regret at losing so prominent a
citizen of their community. The following fall
Charles Phillips
assumed his father's professorship.
At about this time, the community that had symbolized enlightenment in the state
became the growing center of
Ku Klux Klan activity. Though many
Chapel
Hillians deplored the
Klan and sought to help
blacks establish
churches, schools, and new lives as free people, others regarded
blacks with hatred, suspicion, and condescension. Between 1867 and 1870,
the period of the most intense
Klan activity in the region, masked raiders rode
through town at night, their horses' hooves muffled, to terrorize
blacks. Stoning houses, beating those who attempted to stand up to the
Klan, and intimidating inmates at a local poorhouse for blacks were
among some of the outrages perpetrated by
Klansmen (
Vickers 80). Most historians
believe that the leader of the
Klan in
North Carolina was
William Laurence Saunders
, son of a
Raleigh minister and a
Confederate soldier under
Gen. Lee.
Saunders
was an honor
graduate of the
University.
The 1867 Commencement was attended by
President Andrew Johnson and several Federal
officials, including the military governor of
North and
South Carolina
Gen.
Daniel E. Sickles. The
President, a
North Carolina native, had come to
Raleigh to
dedicate a monument to his father in the city cemetery and became
Gov. Swain's
guest for the commencement exercises. Though only eleven seniors received
degrees, the ceremonies were as elaborate as they had been before the
war. The
Dialectic and
Philanthropic Societies
initiated the special guests as honorary members.
2
Gov.
William Woods Holden
, however, was conspicuously absent. He had not
been invited, probably by design (
Vickers 77). The faculty and
trustees had been fairly outspoken in
their criticism of the new
Republican Party in
North
Carolina, and just as
President Johnson would face his own difficulties with
a
Republican Congress intent on impeaching him in 1868, the
University would come to understand that slighting the
state's new leader was unwise.
By Fall of 1867 the financial straits of faculty members and their families had
prompted them to seek positions elsewhere. Though the
legislature in
1866 had appropriated a one-time payment of $7,000 in much needed
faculty salaries, for some the relief had come too late.
John Kimberly
, professor
of agricultural chemistry, had already resigned, and
Solomon Pool
had taken a
leave of absence in 1866 to become a deputy appraiser with the revenue service.
In Fall 1867
Andrew D. Hepburn
, professor of metaphysics, logic, and rhetoric,
took a position at
Miami University of Ohio.
William J.
Martin
, professor of chemistry, mineralogy and geology, also left
Chapel
Hill for a school in
Columbia, TN, then an appointment on the
faculty at
Davidson College. Most of the tutors had been killed in the
war,
and afterwards, low enrollments did not warrant appointing new ones. The last
tutor of the antebellum period was the son of
Professor Manuel Fetter
,
Frederick
Fetter, who had taught Latin since 1859 as well as classes in
military tactics. He was not reappointed after 1866.
It became clear in 1867 that the University was on the verge
of failure. Its endowment was lost, and it owed large debts for property it had
mortgaged. Though enrollments had risen slightly, tuition receipts were
inadequate to paying faculty salaries. It had lost its old friends in the legislature and gained powerful enemies in the new era of Reconstruction. The classical curriculum, so heavily oriented toward
Latin and Greek, no longer appealed to prospective students or, indeed, to some
of the faculty. The post-war South would need fewer ministers and
politicians and a great many more professionals with backgrounds in the
sciences. The regular progression of students through a lock-step curriculum had
lost favor together with the notion that a college education was the privilege
of the influential, monied class. A complete remodeling of the University was in order.
To enable the
trustees to enact financial and curricular changes that might save
the
University,
Gov. Swain
and the remaining
members of the faculty tendered their resignations to the
board of trustees on August 22, 1867. They agreed to finish out the
school year, and most expected to be reappointed when a new, elective curriculum
and higher admissions standards went into effect in Fall 1868. On March 16,
1868, however, the new state constitution was adopted, and by July 20, 1868,
North
Carolina had been readmitted to the Union. The new constitution swept
away the old
board of trustees and replaced them by members elected, not
by the
General Assembly, but by a new
Board of Education. Out of the seventy-eight new
trustees elected, only four had belonged to the old
board,
and on July 24, 1868, the new
trustees declared the faculty
resignations final.
Gov. Swain
was stunned. Faculty members were despondent, though perhaps not surprised that
their days of teaching in
Chapel Hill were over. The last commencement
had taken place as usual in early June 1868, with twenty students receiving
diplomas.
3 By
early August classes at the
University were
suspended.
4
Professor Charles
Phillips
, writing to his friend
Kemp Plummer Battle
on July 29, 1868,
reported that
Ceburn L. Harris, the superintendent of public works, had
"demanded" of
Professor Fetter
the keys to all
University buildings: "He [
Harris] came in the
rain—at night—sent for
Prof F.
in the rain & asked to be shown
over the buildings at once—so that
Prof. F.
got as wet as a rat" (
Battle Family
Papers, SHC). The following Sunday
Harris retrieved the keys to the debating
society halls and gave students two days' notice to vacate the buildings.
5
On August 4, 1868,
Swain
protested the
board's refusal to reappoint him or any members
of his faculty. Protocol required him to send his letter to
Gov.
William Woods Holden
, a man who had denounced the
University as "a center of aristocracy and
rebellion" (
Russell, The Woman Who Rang the Bell 83).
Holden
did
not respond. On August 11th, before the
board had a chance to meet again,
Swain
and
Professor Manuel
Fetter
rode six miles out of
Chapel Hill to inspect
Swain's
farm
Babylon. They were riding in
Swain's
buggy, drawn by the horse
Gen. Sherman
had given him. On the trip back home, the skittish horse bolted, throwing both
men out of the buggy and onto the ground. Though they recovered rapidly from
their physical injuries,
Swain
continued to be weak from the accident. He died
on August 27, 1868,
6
and was buried in his garden next to his daughter
Annie
.
The remaining faculty dispersed quietly.
Fordyce Hubbard
went to teach in a
boys' school in
Manlius, NY.
Manuel Fetter
took a teaching job in
Henderson,
NC.
Hildreth Smith
headed for
Lincolnton, NC.
Judge William Battle
moved his
law practice to
Raleigh.
Charles Phillips
was at a loss what to do. He had grown up
in
Chapel
Hill; his father and two infant children were buried there; his
mother was ailing. He worried about the
University's
property, the protection of its scientific apparatus, the security of the
debating societies' papers and libraries, the furniture and other belongings of
students who had expected to return to classes in the fall. Finally he accepted
a faculty position at
Davidson College, eventually returning
to the
University when it reopened in 1875.
He left behind a sister
Cornelia Phillips Spencer
, a
teacher whose newspaper articles and private correspondence with friends and
alumni would be crucial to the rebirth of the
University. As she sat beneath the oaks in the center of campus in late
November, watching a
black girl lean against the well, the gravel
walk rain-washed and overgrown with grass, the surrounding buildings guarded by
soldiers,
Spencer
realized how desolate the place had
become. "
Chapel Hill," she wrote, "is the Deserted
Village of the South" (
Selected Papers 610).