The University of Alabama was burned to the ground on this day

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The University of Alabama, located about a mile from downtown, had converted to a military form of governance in 1860. After Alabama seceded from the Union the following year, it became the “West Point of the South,” supplying the Confederacy with 7 generals, 25 colonels, 14 lieutenant colonels, 21 majors, 125 captains, 273 staff and other commissioned officers and 294 private soldiers. Their contributions are memorialized on the university campus by a large granite marker on the main quadrangle north of Denny Chimes, and by a beautiful Tiffany memorial window in the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library.

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If I remeber correctly, three building are still standing from that time. The presidents mansion, the Jason's Shrine, and the Gorgas house.

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Designed by the noted English architect William Nichols, the University of Alabama was laid out in the shade of the Greek letter ?. At the center of the campus—of the ?—stood the Rotunda, a three-story, domed building surrounded by a colonnade of two dozen Ionic columns. The first two floors housed an auditorium used for commencement ceremonies, Sunday church services, and morning prayers. The University’s natural history collection and the 7,000-volume library occupied the third floor.

Flanking the Rotunda were four brick dormitories or barracks—Franklin, Madison, Washington, and Jefferson halls. Madison Hall also housed the rooms of the University’s two literary societies and their libraries, the University dining hall, and President Garland’s study, containing the bulk of his private library. Between each north-south pair of barracks was a single-story frame dormitory. These structures, called Johnson and Lee halls by the cadets, had been built in 1863 to accommodate the increased demand for admission.

North of the Rotunda was the Lyceum, a two-story brick building which housed laboratories and several classrooms. West of the Lyceum were two, or possibly three, faculty houses. To the east was a faculty house and, at some distance, the Corps’ gunpowder magazine. Northwest of the Rotunda and only a few feet away, stood the only building on campus erected for a purely military purpose—the guardhouse.

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Although there was little wind the morning of April 4, 1865, sparks from the burning buildings set two faculty homes ablaze, including the house occupied by Librarian Deloffre and his wife, who managed to save only a few of their possessions before the flames drove them back.

The President’s Mansion barely escaped being burned as well. Mrs. Garland and her children had fled the campus the evening before, hiding for a time near the Confederate nitre works (near the present location of Evergreen Cemetery) before seeking refuge in the Alabama Insane Hospital, east of the University. Upon learning that the University was being burned, Mrs. Garland returned to her home to find several cavalrymen setting fire to her furniture. Outraged at this unwarranted attempt to destroy a private dwelling, she convinced the soldiers to put out the fire and leave.

Legend has it that Mrs. Reuben Chapman, who lived near the Observatory, was able to dissuade the troops from destroying that building. Union soldiers did, however, damage the instruments and remove several telescopic lenses as souvenirs.

The magazine containing the University’s gunpowder was another target for destruction. A detachment of cadets, left behind with instructions to blow it up, had failed to do so, but Union soldiers completed the task. The resulting explosion broke windows in nearby houses and left one professor’s wife deaf for a week.

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