Auburn in the Civil War Era: 1853 - 1871
Original Lecture Date and Time: February 23, 2006
at 4PM
Location: Special Collections & Archives, Ralph Brown Draughon Library
Speaker: Ralph Brown Draughon, Jr.
About the Speaker
Ralph Brown Draughon, Jr., recieved his Ph.D. degree in history for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Alabama secessionist William Lowndes Yancey.
About the Lecture
In 1856 the state legislature chartered the East Alabama Male College (later Auburn University), but the school did not open until three years later, on the eve of the Civil War. Always called "Auburn", the college was sponsored by local Methodists. When armed conflict interrupted its promising beginning, the college served as a Confederate hospital, endured a severe tornado, and survived a federal invasion. Struggling to reopen after the Civil War, the college operated for a few years with insufficient funds until the Methodists offered the institution to the state.