Augustus Baldwin Longstreet - Sources

Lawyer, writer, educator, and editor, born in Augusta, Georgia, USA. He graduated from Yale (1813) and attended the Litchfield Law School (1813–14) in Connecticut before being admitted to the Georgia bar (1815) and settling in Greensboro, GA. He served in the state legislature (1821) and then as a Georgia Superior Court judge (1822–5) before returning to Augusta to practise law. He wrote a series of 18 humorous sketches for the Southern Recorder that were first published anonymously (1835) as Georgia Scenes, Characters and Incidents Etc, in the First Half Century of the Republic (republished under his name in 1840). Popular in their day, they have little literary standing but are known for foreshadowing the frontier vernacular writings of others such as George Washington Harris and Mark Twain. Ordained as a Methodist minister (1838), he turned to a career as college president: Emory College (Georgia) (1839–48), Centenary College (Louisiana) (1849), the University of Mississippi (1849–56), and the University of South Carolina (1857–65). He had already declared his sympathies when he founded and edited the Augusta State Rights Sentinel (1834–6). He supported secession, and after the Civil War wrote articles justifying the Southern position. He also wrote short stories and a novel.

Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (September 22, 1790-September 9, 1870) was an American lawyer, minster, educator, and humorist, born in Augusta, Ga. He became a Methodist minister and in a year was made president of Emory College (1839).

After nine years he accepted the presidency of Centenary College, Louisiana, then of the University of Mississippi, where he stayed for six years, after which he resigned, and became a planter, but was tempted by the presidency of South Carolina College.

During his years as a Southern Methodist minister Longstreet preached a doctrine of secession and defended slavery. Longstreet, in a baccalaureate address to the University of South Carolina graduating class of 1859, urged the young men of his audience to defend Southern rights to the utmost. Longstreet assured the class that succession would not lead to war, but, if it should, a united South would win.”

His fame is based, however, on a single book, of which he was the author: Georgia Scenes (1835), originally published in newspapers, then gathered into a volume at the South, and finally issued in 1840 in New York.

Augustus was a mentor for his nephew James Longstreet, and was a long time friend and associate of John C.

Sources

Footnotes

↑ Lewis M. Purifoy, "The Southern Methodist Church and the Proslavery Argument," The Journal of Southern History, Vol.

This article incorporates text from an edition of the New International Encyclopedia that is in the public domain.