Day Three: Emory & Henry Goes To War

During the presidential campaign of 1860, many Emory and Henry students campaigned on behalf of the Constitutional Union Party, a political refuge for cautious border Whigs and nativists who were intent on preserving slavery but alarmed by the belligerence of fire-eating Democrats and Northern Republicans. One such student was John Bell Brownlow son of William G. Brownlow a noted Unionist from Knoxville, TN.  One night after a heated debate in the Calliopean Society about the issues of Civil War, John Brownlow struck a fellow classmate in the head with a stick of firewood in self defense and killed the other boy. The Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was elected and Virginia seceded from the Union, most students set aside their political differences and withdrew from classes in order to join the war effort. The college's president, Ephraim Emerson Wiley, served as a chaplain, ministering to wounded soldiers who were relocated to the college grounds.

The Emory and Henry board of trustees rejected a request to turn the college into barracks for the Washington Mounted Rifles, or Company D of the 1st Virginia Cavalry.  Instead, the Confederate government established the Emory Confederate States Hospital, reimbursing the school for use of the grounds and buildings. During this period, the college also earned money by selling supplies to the Confederate quartermaster corps.

Emory and Henry's location in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains kept it isolated from the military campaigns that raged across the Shenandoah Valley and the Piedmont. Still, it was threatened by periodic Union raids targeting the nearby Wytheville lead mines and the salt production facility at Saltville, the latter of which was crucial in provisioning the Confederate army. One such raid in October 1864 resulted in the Battle of Saltville, where outnumbered Confederate cavalry managed to drive back a determined assault led by Union general Stephen G. Burbridge.

John Bell Browlow

More Information on John Bell Brownlow

http://www.nytimes.com/1860/03/08/news/parson-brownlow-in-defence-of-his-son.html?smid=fb-share

More Information on Emory & Henry During The Civil War

http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/emory_and_henry_college_during_the_civil_war#start_entry