Auburn Train Station
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Davis, Jefferson; Montgomery, AL; Confederacy; Confederate Army; East Alabama Male College; Columbus, GA; Rousseau, General Lovell Harrison; New Orleans, LA; Richmond; United Daughters of the Confederacy; Auburn, AL; Wilson, General James Harrison
In February 1861, president-elect Jefferson Davis rode a train from his plantation in Mississippi to Atlanta and then to Montgomery, Alabama for his inauguration as president of the Confederacy. On February 16, at the Auburn train depot, president-elect Davis reviewed the Auburn Guards, a company of cadets from the East Alabama Male College who were reportedly the first of the Confederate Army to be reviewed by Davis.
Because the Montgomery and West Point Railroad connected Auburn with the state capital at Montgomery and the vital industrial city of Columbus, GA, the Auburn train depot and tracks were later destroyed under Rousseau and Wilson's raids, in 1864 and 1865 respectively. It was replaced by a second station after the end of the war which was located to the west of the current (and final) depot. In 1893, the Auburn cadets formed an honor guard when former Confederate president Jefferson Davis's body was sent by train from New Orleans to Richmond. In commemoration of the former president's visit to Auburn, on March 30, 1914, the United Daughters of the Confederacy unveiled a marker near the depot that stands today.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-4
Joshua Shiver
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Old Main Hall
Education; Lee County, AL; Auburn University; East Alabama Male College; Button, Stephen Decatur; Civil War; General Lovell Rousseau; Morrill Act; Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College; Old Main Hall; William J. Samford Hall
After the state awarded East Alabama Male College its charter on February 7, 1856, the Board of Trustees set about securing funds to build an administrative and educational building. The trustees initially allocated $25,000 for the facility, but the building that came to be known as Old Main Hall required an expenditure of approximately $60,000 to complete. Stephen Decatur Button, a nationally prominent architect, designed and built the four-story Italianate-style academic building.
Old Main Hall was the primary building of the East Alabama Male College from 1856 until 1887. During the Civil War, EAMC suspended operations like so many of the country’s other academic institutions. As faculty, staff, and students left school to join the Confederate war effort, the EAMC shuttered its doors from 1861 to 1864 when Old Main Hall, Langdon Hall, and the Chapel were converted into makeshift hospitals for wounded soldiers arriving from Atlanta. In 1864, Texas’s state legislature paid to convert Old Main Hall into a convalescent hospital that they dubbed Texas Hospital. The ramshackle hospital housed over four hundred Confederate soldiers, many of whom never saw their homes again and were buried in nearby Pine Hill Cemetery.
Old Main also acted as a parade ground where soldiers from nearby Camp Beauregard and Camp Johnson marched and drilled during the war. In July 1864, Major General Lovell H. Rousseau and his force of approximately 2,500 Union cavalrymen raided the cities of Auburn and Opelika where they destroyed thirty-five miles of railroad tracks, the local post office, and Pebble Hill. In an effort to defend the city, sixteen-year old John Hodges Drake and approximately thirty or forty convalescents from the Texas Hospital offered some token resistance to Rousseau's raid, to little avail. The Federal cavalrymen left the bedridden and newly minted prisoners alone and did little damage to civilian property.
In fall 1866, students returned to attend classes in a building ravaged by the elements and war. In the early morning of June 24, 1887, a fire broke out in Old Main Hall’s lower basement chemistry lab. The ensuing conflagration consumed the entire building. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, the students met for classes in the Chapel. In 1888, the school erected a new administration building, William J. Samford Hall, on Old Main Hall’s original foundation. Old Main Hall’s cornerstone is still visible at the base of the northeast corner of Samford Hall. Old Main Hall’s building originally occupied the space that is now 182 South College Street, Auburn University.
Taylor McGaughy, Joshua Shiver
Image Source: http://www.auburn.edu/communications_marketing/150/lecture.html
Text Source: Ralph Draughon, Jr., Delos Hughes, and Ann Pearson, Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs (Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2012), 9-11.
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-11-21
Taylor McGaughy, Joshua Shiver
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Opelika, Alabama
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Opelika, AL; Rousseau, General Lovell Harrison; Auburn, AL
The city of Opelika, Alabama was incorporated on February 9, 1854. Because of the many rail lines that snaked through the city, warehouses were built during the war to store cotton and other goods. When General Lovell Harrison Rousseau’s men stormed through Auburn and Opelika in July 1864, they destroyed railroads and other property including Opelika’s warehouses.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-4
Joshua Shiver
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English
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Pebble Hill
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Pebble Hill; Historic Home; Scott, Nathaniel J.; Rousseau, General Lovell Harrison; Yancey, William Lowndes; Union Army; Auburn, AL
Pebble Hill was the home of Nathaniel J. Scott and his family from 1847 to 1871. When Rousseau’s men swept through Auburn in July 1864, William Lowndes Yancey’s widow resided at Pebble Hill and Union soldiers looted the building because of her presence. It was reported that Nathaniel Scott’s family had silver near a spring on the property and though Union soldiers watered their horses at this spring, the silver was never found.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-4
Joshua Shiver
<a href="http://www.cla.auburn.edu/cah/pebble-hill/history-of-pebble-hill/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">History of Pebble Hill</a><br /><a href="http://www.cla.auburn.edu/cah/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities</a>
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Rousseau and Wilson's Raids
Lee County, AL; Civil War; Union Army; Rousseau, Major General Lovell Harrison; Sherman, General William T.; Decatur; Johnston, Major General Joseph; Atlanta; Confederate Army; Texas Hospital; Wilson, General James H.; Phenix City; Columbus, GA
On July 10, 1864, Major General William T. Sherman ordered Major General Lovell Harrison Rousseau to depart from Decatur, Alabama with approximately 2,500 men. Their goal was to sever the Montgomery and West Point railroads - a vital link for funneling supplies from central Alabama to Confederate Major General Joe Johnston's overwhelmed and outnumbered forces in Atlanta. Along the way, Rousseau's men were to destroy every scrap of government supplies or materials that could be used to aid the Confederate defense of Atlanta.
Local slaves in the Auburn/Opelika area funneled information to Rousseau and his men about the area's weak defenses. In Auburn, only a handful of patients at the Texas Hospital were able to offer even token resistance. As Rousseau and his cavalry rumbled through the streets of Auburn and then Opelika, they burned warehouses, burned train depots, the post office, and disabled the local rolling stocks. Union soldiers returned once again on April 15, 1865, this time under the command of Major General James H. Wilson. They swept through Auburn, Opelika, and Phenix City, before finally making their way across the 14th Street Bridge into their intended target, the massive industrial city of Columbus, Georgia.
Joshua Shiver
Alabama Cultural Resource Survey
2014-12-5
Joshua Shiver
<a href="http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-3596" target="_blank">Encyclopedia of Alabama: Rousseau's Raid</a><br /><a href="http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1375" target="_blank">Encyclopedia of Alabama: Wilson's Raid</a><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1864/08/03/news/gen-rousseau-s-raid-highly-interesting-particulars-expedition-departure-decatur.html" target="_blank">New York Times July 27, 1864: Gen. Rousseau's Raid</a><br /><a href="http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/civilwar/unionroutes.html" target="_blank">Routes of Union Activity in Alabama (Maps)</a>
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