Civil War

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See the guide for Civil War Resources available in the SCRC.

The College of William and Mary During the Civil War

The College was closed May 1861 through the Fall of 1865 because of the Civil War. The Battle of Williamsburg was May 5, 1862. The Union Army occupied the city for the remainder of the Civil War and the Wren Building was used as a hospital during the Union occupation of the area.

The outbreak of the Civil War found Williamsburg with a population of 1600 citizens. Some sixty young men attended the College of William and Mary. Benjamin S. Ewell, president of the College, and a West Point graduate, was elected captain of the College militia when war fever swept the campus in January 1861. But Ewell, a Unionist, forbade the students from flying a Confederate flag over the Wren Building. After Virginia seceded, Ewell offered his services on 23 April to the Commonwealth and Robert E. Lee appointed him major of volunteers.

Many students left school to enlist at home so the faculty voted to close the College on 10 May 1861. The town soon became crowded with Confederate troops defending the Peninsula who used college buildings as hospitals. The Battle of Williamsburg was a rear guard action fought in rain and mud on 5 May 1862. The fight was a tactical draw, and the Confederates continued their retreat toward Richmond. Williamsburg was occupied by Federal troops for the remainder of the war.

A transcript of the diary of Henry Alexander Scandrett, a member ofthe 70th New York Infantry, includes the following about his confinement at William and Mary in the winter of 1862. This transcript was provided to SCRC staff via email by a descendant of Henry Alexander Scandrett in October 2007.

"Thursday 9 With fifteen others I was taken prisoner and am now in William & Mary College.

Friday January 10, 1862 Colonel Dwight was wounded in three places and taken prisoner.

Saturday 11 Have learned that our regiment behaved nobly through-out the battle. Our company has been very much cut up indeed."

On 9 September 1862, the Wren Building was almost totally consumed by a fire set by members of the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment. Some other buildings and enclosures belonging to the College also were destroyed and those not so destroyed were held by the Union Army from May 1862 until September 1865. In 1893, $64,000 was appropriated by Congress to the College for "the destruction of its buildings and other property without authority by soldiers of the United States during the late war."

Sources Related to the College of William and Mary

Civil War Williamsburg by Carson Hudson

Defend this old Town by Carol Dubbs

Cows on Campus by Parke Rouse

The old college goes to war: the Civil War experiences of William and Mary students, faculty, and alumni by Sean M Heuvel, Archives Book Collection LD6051 .W52 H48 2006

The College of William and Mary : a history, Godson, Susan H., et. al., Williamsburg, Va. : King and Queen Press, Society of the Alumni, College of William and Mary in Virginia, 1993.

Southern war claims : speeches of Hon. Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, and Hon. Martin I. Townsend, of New York, on bill to pay William and Mary College, of Virginia, the sum of $65,000 for injuries received during the Rebellion : delivered in the House of Representatives April 12, 1878, Thomas Brackett Reed, Archives Book Collection LD6051 .W52 R4

Speech of Hon. George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts, in the House of Representatives, February 9, 1872, George Frisbie Hoar, Archives Book Collection LD6051 .W52 H6 1872