by Joe Dobrow ©1984 and 1991
WAR ON THE CAMPUS: AN HISTORICAL VIEW
here is a piece I originally wrote as an academic paper at Brown, and then adapted for use in a literary journal while I was a Yale grad student, following the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War
From VFW halls to on-line “chat” services, the outbreak of war in the Persian Gulf prompted strong and emotional reactions — but nowhere was the dialogue begun more swiftly nor joined more forcefully than on college campuses.
The American campus has long been a crucible for debate on matters of foreign policy and war. In part this is because the campus is generally a safe forum for protest or demonstration; in part it is because a campus serves as the meeting grounds for intellectual and politically active people who have never previously experienced war. War’s stark arrival forces young men and women to consider the merits of liberal arts training in a world which is seemingly insensible — a world which, in fact, may not even endure long enough to reward the efforts of that training. War also makes students think very carefully about deep issues — “justifiable causes,” “morality,” “equity,” “racism,” “classism” and such — which seldom ever pervade the classroom walls.
A look back at the first major war to affect this university, the Civil War, illustrates that the campus tension between discipline and excitement, between asceticism and patriotism, runs very deep indeed.
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In the months and years leading up to the outbreak of war in 1861, life on the Brown campus remained very sheltered. Enrollment was approaching 200 students, and the school was gradually returning to a classical college curriculum after several years of experimentation under the Administration of Francis Wayland (1827-1855); President Barnas Sears reported with apparent pride in 1858 that “Brown University does not now differ essentially from her sister colleges of the United States.”
Outside of Brown, however, sectionalism was on the rise, order was on the wane, and national tempers were flaring. In 1860 the Presidential Election swept even tiny Rhode Island into the tempest. On February 28, Abraham Lincoln defended his position of non-extension of slavery in a speech at Railroad Hall in Providence. On March 8, Lincoln spoke again in Woonsocket, and 80 or 90 Brown students boarded a train to go hear him. Still, campus life remained very disciplined, and the orations delivered at commencement that year included the usual fare: “The Youth of Milton,” “Arabian Fiction,” “The Philosophic Method of Study,” and so forth.
When the new school year began on September 7, things appeared to be normal on campus, although there were now only seven non-Northerners enrolled, about half as many as usual. Soon, though, the looming war began to intrude. Debate in the two literary societies (a main focus of extracurricular life), the United Brothers and the Philermenians, turned to current events. Topics included “A national compromise upon the issue of Slavery,” and approval of Lincoln’s stand on “the extent of the Power of the Supreme Court.” Similarly, The Brown Paper, forefather of the Brown Daily Herald, noted in November, 1860:
For months, our classic walls have resounded with fierce partisan disputes. The “irrepressible conflict” has furnished innumerable questions for polemics, and generated an immense quantity of the “inflammable.”
One student, Henry Sweetser Burrage ’61, began keeping a diary at the start of the new year, unwittingly providing future historians a window into the minutiae of campus life. Burrage noted with fascination how, on March 9, Professor Gammell took class time to denounce General Twiggs, who had just surrendered public property to seccessionists in Texas. “Recitations in Woolsey on International Law in Professor Gammell’s class afforded the Professor abundant opportunity for political discussion,” he wrote.
One week later, though, all we can see of Burrage is the dedicated scholar: after attending Gammell’s class and a class meeting, he went to the library to work on his Senior Class Poem:
Pegged away at it as long as my patience lasted, and then looked over the essay subjects. Selected “The Political Associations and Services of Milton,” and commenced it at once. Dashed off two or three pages, and then went out to walk. Walked until supper time. In the evening took up my essay for the Dr. on Paley’s Argument for the Genuineness of Second Thessalonians, and finished it before nine o’clock. Read awhile in “Rawlinson’s Evidences.” Commenced a letter to Thomas and went to bed.
On April 4, 1861, President Sears noted in his report to the Executive Board that “Nothing has happened during the last five weeks to disturb the ordinary course of things in college.” But disturbing things had been happening for a while. “The columns of the daily papers were watched with unwonted interest,” wrote Burrage. “Something new and even startling was almost sure to appear with each added day.” On April 9 he wrote: “The war…seems inevitable.” On April 10: “The fleet has arrived off Charleston if report be true, and we are expecting to hear at any moment that war has begun.”
On April 12, news of the attack on Fort Sumter reached the University about midnight: “The news tonight at the [Providence] Journal Office is quite warlike…. At all events the attack was not commenced by the government. On the heads of those who have plunged the country into war be the blood which is to flow.” He later wrote: “It might be said that ‘no man slept in Athens that night.'”
It is difficult to estimate the level of excitement felt on campus immediately after the outbreak of war. Here was a collection of young men in a cerebral setting, who were faced with actions speaking much louder than words. How could discipline prevail under such circumstances?
Decorum gave way in Gammell’s class. He talked about Fort Sumter on Saturday morning the 13th: “It looks as if our flag there must go down. It must go up again, and that, too, at whatever cost.” This remark, says Burrage, was followed by a massive stamping of feet by the students that “must have started dust as old as the Revolution, for the class was in University Hall. On the part of the professor that morning there were no deprecatory gestures because of this demonstration, as was customary in that room in connection with like expressions of approval.”
Events moved quickly. On Monday, April 15, after Sears’ recitation, the seniors held a class meeting and appointed a committee “to wait on the doctor [Sears] and obtain permission to raise the Stars and Stripes over the college building [University Hall].” At this meeting, John Jefferson Ward ’61 “moved to raise the flag of the C.S.A. — and after voting ‘No!’ on the principal motion, seceded.”
That same day, Lincoln sent out a call for 75,000 troops, and the request did not go unheeded at Brown. Burrage wrote on April 16:
The war feeling becomes more and more intense. Burrows [’61], Bowen [’63], Avery [’64] and Monroe [’64] have already enlisted, and others are ready to enlist should there be a call for more troops….
There is very little study in college just at this time. “My voice is for war!” may be said of all. Even the freshmen published this afternoon in the Evening Press resolutions sustaining the administration and expressing sympathy for their classmates who have joined the armies of this country!
The patriotic excitement peaked on April 17. At 5:00 on that Wednesday afternoon — “A day long to be remembered in college!” according to Burrage — the flag was raised over University Hall for the first time since the Revolutionary War.
It was greeted with cheer on cheer from every part of the college green. The band then played the “Star Spangled Banner.” Dr. Sears then stepped forward and made the opening address. He was followed by Bishop Clark, Rev. Dr. Hall, Rev. Dr. Caldwell and Ex-Governor Dyer, all of whom made stirring patriotic speeches. After Dr. Hall’s speech the students sang America “My Country ’tis of thee”…. Everybody pronounced the affair a thrilling success. Certainly it was the proudest day I have known in college.
On the same day, four seniors enlisted in the First Rhode Island Volunteers. Before the term ended in July, fully 12.8 percent of the student body, or roughly one in eight, would also abandon their studies for the glories of tent and field.
Having left Brown, the young warriors were gone but not forgotten. “Letters soon began to come from our brothers in the field,” Burrage wrote later, “and we kept in close touch with events in Washington, where the troops were quartered. Our thoughts were with them rather than with our textbooks.”
A few years later, Class President William W. Hoppin reflected back on the spring on 1861:
In our senior year came the rumor of war and the calls from the various armories for men to enlist, and we students spent more time at the armories than in the lecture room. Meeting on the street one day, on our way to or from an armory, one of our most dignified professors, he stopped and said, “Come back to your studies: it is not well to breathe any longer this exciting atmosphere.” And yet we kept on breathing it until some of our number marched away from the sound of the college bell to the tap of the drum.
Sears must have been reluctant to write the report to the Executive Board on May 4:
The events which have produced such an extraordinary effect upon the public mind generally have not failed to act powerfully upon the minds of the students. Some have enlisted & taken their places in the camp. Some were so excited at the first outbreak of our present material troubles that, for a few days, they nearly forgot that this was a college, & the Professors succeeded in reviving in them a consciousness that they still belonged to college. Of those who were regular and constant in their attendance, scarcely one has been able to fix his mind upon study as at other times. By the active cooperation of all the officers the outward attendance has been nearly restored, though it will be hardly possible to secure the usual amount of study, while the public excitement lasts.
Burrage wrote on April 20 that there was “No French yesterday nor to-day. M. Renaud said we ought to be excused to see our classmates off, as it was thought the troops would go to-day. He said if a second call comes he will enlist.” And then on April 20,
Professor Gammell dismissed us this morning without hearing the recitation, a very considerate act, as we all wanted to be down to see the troops off. I saw Sackett in the ranks of the Infantry, and had an opportunity to chat with him a little while…. Sackett had a revolver and he said that most of the troops had…. The line was formed in Exchange Place at 1 o’clock. A beautiful and yet thrilling scene it was!
Spring vacation started just a few days later, with the faculty advising students not to enlist during their visits home. None apparently did — but upon their return to campus, the military fervor continued unabated. A drill group called the University Cadets was formed, and 78 students took part — parading in their dark blue shirts, light blue Zouave pants and red caps three afternoons a week on the back campus. Other students, according to Burrage, “flocked to the armories and to Camp Burnside to watch the new military units perform their evolutions.”
By the time Class Day arrived, on June 13, the transformation of campus life was all but complete. The Cadets gave a public parade, and later escorted the seniors to dinner. The Class President, Hoppin, was already in the army, as were at least six of his classmates and 17 underclassmen. At least one former classmate (A.P. Vinson, who, when he enlisted with the 12th South Carolina, gave his occupation as “student”) had already been killed in battle. And the Class Poet, Henry Sweetser Burrage, reflected on his departed friends:
Some, out of breath, in dignified repose
Have found relief from all their college woes;
Some grown impatient for a fiercer strife
Have sought with haste the dusty plains of life;
And some where gleams the tented field afar–
Where mustering squadrons sound the note of war–
Have gathered ‘neath the starry folds which wave
In triumph proudly o’er the loyal brave.
Within 14 months, Burrage, too, would be fighting in the “tented field afar.”
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Reflecting on the events of January 16, I am glad that I found myself back on a college campus. My return to graduate school has not afforded me many opportunities to be grateful, but I was most certainly grateful to be at Yale when war broke out. Along with many others whom I don’t know well, I sat dumbfounded in a campus restaurant, watching the fateful pictures from Baghdad come over the television.
Then a few of us went off to hear George McGovern speak — a fortuitous bit of planning by the Yale Political League. Waiting for the former Senator to arrive, I sat in a packed chapel listening to a transistor radio, not at first even noticing the crowd which had encircled me to listen along. Later, we all returned home: to hear the President, to watch CNN…and to debate whether or not to return to our studies.
I, for one, chose not to.