Princeton University, one of the elite Ivy League schools, is in the North East in New Jersey. There is a monument on campus memorializing alums and students from the school that were killed in the Civil War. You might think that the monument would be without controversy. You would be wrong.
Unlike many other college monuments, this one lists both those who served the United States and those who fought for the Confederacy.
The monument is in Nassau Hall, a building that was built in 1756. At that time, it was the largest building in the Colony of New Jersey. The Battle of Princeton in 1777 was fought around the hall, with both the British and Americans fighting to capture it. In 1783, the hall was the U.S. capitol. Today, it houses the university’s president and administrative offices.
To see the monument, go in through the main entrance. The college does not try to keep visitors out of the building. On the way in are two brass panels on either side of the entrance door which explain the history of the building and the university.
When you are inside the building you will walk into the Memorial Atrium. It was built after World War I to remember students from Princeton who lost their lives in the Great War. After it was built, panels were added to the dead from earlier wars, including those from the Civil War. Those who died are listed in alphabetical order with their graduation date listed next to each. Nowhere on the panel is the side the person fought for listed.
You might think that the names engraved represent primarily Federal soldiers, but that is not correct. There are more Confederates than Union men on the wall.
Princeton was founded in 1746 through the auspices of the Presbyterian Church. While the Presbyterians had adherents in New Jersey and western Pennsylvania, it was much more popular in the South, and so during its first century at least 40% of its students came from the states below the Mason-Dixon line. Future President James Madison of Virginia was the most famous graduate of the school among the Revolutionary generation. Fifteen governors of future Confederate states graduated from Princeton, and its reputation was so high in the South that Alexander Stephens, vice-president of the Confederacy praised the “sound, practical wisdom” of Princeton alumni, “the wise moderation and conservatism of their views.” Before the Civil War, 22 senators from Southern states graduated from Princeton.
Below is the Memorial Atrium.
During the years before the Civil War, Princeton Alums were prominent in defending slavery and, in the late 1850s, shepherding the South towards secession. For instance, Alexander Boteler of Virginia graduated from Princeton and later represented Virginia in Congress. When his state seceded, he resigned his office and then became a Confederate Congressman. He served in the Confederate army and helped design the Seal of the Confederacy. Princeton graduate U.S. Supreme Court Justice James Wayne joined in the Dred Scott decision taking away most rights from people of color.
In 1859, Southern students held a rally to condemn John Brown. When the war broke out with firing on Fort Sumter in 1861, students raised a United States flag on the flagpole of the Nassau Hall, but it was promptly taken down. During the war, 155 Princetonians joined the Union Army and 200 joined the Confederate forces.
Princeton Alums were prominent in the government of the Confederacy. Alfred Iverson, Sr., the father of the Confederate general of the same name, left the United States Sente in 1861 because, he said, he wanted “a full and explicit recognition of the guarantee of the safety of their institution of domestic slavery.” Similarly, James Chestnut also resigned from the Senate. He went on to help write the Confederate Constitution and served as an aide to Jefferson Davis. His wife was Mary Chestnut.
At least seven Princeton alumni became Confederate generals.
While the monument is in good shape, there are garbage cans obscuring the bottom six rows of those memorialized.
Immediately after the war, Princeton tried to downplay its alums’ participation on behalf of the Confederacy. In 1865 Princeton created an Honor Roll with the names of those men who served in the Union Army and Navy. At its 1866 Civil War memorial service, no mention was made of Rebel Princetonians. The number of Southerners in the student body dipped to about 10% during the half-century after the war. However, as the 20th Century dawned, the university tried to find out which of its alums had served in the Confederate forces. When the university sent a questionnaire to its Southern alums asking about what had happened to them, John Gammon, Class of 1863 from Georgia responded “I have been shot quite numerously.”
After World War I the atrium was created to honor the dead from that war. It was dedicated on February 21, 1920. When the university decided to put up a panel honoring its Civil War dead, the original plan was to put up all the dead, but to distinguish them by which side they fought for. University President John Grier Hibben rejected the idea, saying that “No, the names shall be placed alphabetically, and no one shall know on which side these young men fought.”
By the 1920s, most of the Union veterans of the war were dead. Princeton had been under the presidency of a native of the South, Woodrow Wilson before the Great War. Hibben himself was born during the Civil War and his father died in the war as a Union chaplain. He seemed to have great authority in making the decision because of the suffering of his family. Finally, by the 1920s, Reconciliation among whites from both the North and South became a dominant part of American opinion.
In 1923, the names of 62 men were engraved on the wall, 31 for the Confederacy and 31 for the Union. Many people observed that it was strange that the same exact number were recorded for each side. Over the next two decades the university became aware of eight more Princetonians who died during the war, four from each side, and their names were also inscribed. Modern research has revealed that there were, in fact, 86 alumni who perished as a result of the war. 47 died fighting for the Confederacy and 39 for the Union.
In 1924, the Princeton Alumni Association donated $1,000 (about 26,000 in today’s dollars) to build a Confederate monument at Stone Mountain in Georgia. Stone Mountain was where the Second Ku Klux Klan was founded.
The student news source, the Princeton Progressive used the Civil War Sesquicentennial to call for a more realistic of Princeton’s role in the Civil War. It said:
“It is not easy talking about mistakes and wicked actions, but it is necessary. Institutions and their leaders mute memories that are incongruent with the current political atmosphere. They attempt to portray their history in a forgiving light. Yet, it is better to be upfront and honest than to pretend the past was sin-free.”
The Progressive noted that unlike other Ivys that graduated their first Black students within a decade of two of the Civil War, Princeton’s first Black student graduated in 1947.
In the last five years the university has responded to student demands to confront the school’s past. A tour of the site in 2019 said its guide would demonstrate “the institution’s embarrassingly favorable connections to the slaveholding South and the Confederacy.”
While there are many historical markers on Nassau Hall, there is no explanatory material in the Atrium explaining the school’s connection to slavery and the Confederacy. There are on-line materials on Princeton’s official web site, but they are only accessible if you are looking for them.
Nassau Hall is a symbol of the University which is rapidly approaching its 300th Anniversary. It should have easily accessed explanatory materials in the Atrium.
Princeton’s administration has made changes in how it interprets the building next door to Nassau Hall. This is the President’s House where the University President has historically lived until 1878. Recently an interpretive panel was erected that says that some presidents were cared for by “at least sixteen enslaved men, women, and children.” The marker includes the names of those persons forced to stay on campus. All nine of Princeton’s first nine presidents owned slaves and at least five of them brought slaves into the President’s House. The presidents who brough their slaves into the house were Aaron Burr Sr., Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Finley, Samuel Stanhope Smith, and Ashbel Green.
The President’s House.
Sources:
Princeton’s Civil War Memorial by Richard Anderson
Princeton in the Confederacy’s Service by W. Barksdale Maynard
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