Male

September 22, 1790

July 9, 1870

Augusta, GA

Edgefield District, SC
Wilmington, SC
Oxford, MS

Frances Parke Longstreet (March 3, 1817)

Augustus Longstreet was the son of William and Hannah Randolph Longstreet. His father was an inventor who, in 1806, ran a steamboat on the Savannah River and, in 1788, the state of Georgia hagave him the exclusive rights to the steam engine. Augustus was born in Augusta, GA, and was said to have weighed seventeen pounds at birth. Longstreet was sent to school in Augusta but was a poor pupil and did not enjoy school. After beginning his young education in Augusta, his father moved the family to the Edgefield District in South Carolina. After a few years however, Augustus was sent back to Augusta for more primary schooling. His roommate at the time, George McDuffie, was reportedly an intense student who was able to get Longstreet interested in learning.

In 1808, he was sent to the Waddell ...School in Wilmington, SC where he boarded at the home of William Calhoun (the brother of John C. Calhoun). While later attending Yale, as well as the Litchfield Law School, Longstreet reportedly turned his Georgia accent into an tool for social success, and passed that advice onto many Southern "yarns" with an exaggerated accent and provincial country manner. He told the types of tales which he would later become famous for in his Georgia Scenes.

During all of his schooling, Longstreet was following in the footsteps of John C. Calhoun (the Calhouns being close friends of his parents). After his marraige to Francis Parke, a very wealthy woman, the couple moved to her home in Greensboro, GA, where Longstreet began to practice law. Their first child was born in 1820. Ultimately, six of their children died young and only two of their daughters survived to adulthood.

In 1824, the deaths of several of his children caused Longstreet to withdraw from politics. Although he was nominated for the United States Congress in 1827, he experienced a religious conversion before the election and joined the Methodist Church; consequently giving up the contest for Congress.
In 1827, he briefly took over the Augusta Sentinel. Longstreet published his famous work Georgia Scenes in 1835 in book format (the tales had previously been a series of newspaper sketches). This work was very popular and Longstreet saw the stories as a source of the history of old Georgia. From 1834 to 1836, he acted as the editor/publisher of Augusta Rights' Sentinel. However, Longstreet soon left the world of publishing as well as his legal practice.

In 1838, Longstreet entered the Methodist ministry and gave up his law practice the following year. He was appointed the President of Emory University in 1839. Longstreet also received an honorary degree from Yale in 1841. In 1844, Longstreet acted as an influential member of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New York, NY. This meeting led to the rupture between the northern and southern churches over the issue of slavery. In 1847, Longstreet published A Voice from the South, which presented a view against New England, a view that had been influenced and developed during his time in Litchfield. While in Litchfield, Longstreet was greatly influenced by the predominantly Federalist politics of New England. There was great opposition to the War of 1812 in New England, whereas in his home state of Georgia there was strong support for the war. Longstreet believed that many New Englanders opposition to the war and threats of secession were treasonous, even though his later belief in the right of individual states to secede reflected what New England had believed and he had opposed when he was at the Litchfield Law School.

A Voice from the South: Comprising Letters from Georgia to Massachusetts, and to the Southern States was published anonymously and offered a criticism of Northern attitudes on slavery. While the Litchfield Law School did not deal with the moral issue of slavery in its curriculum, Tapping Reeve several times defended runaway slaves. Longstreet was also greatly influenced by the sermons of Rev. Lyman Beecher about the importance of temperance in 1812, and he later became the leader of the early temperance movement in Georgia. Longstreet resigned from Emory in 1849 to become President of the Centenary College in Louisiana, but left shortly after taking the position. From 1849 to 1856, he served as the President of the University of Mississippi. In 1857, he was elected the President of South Carolina College and was also elected an honorary member of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1861, the students at South Carolina College left in large groups to fight in the Civil War. Longstreet thus returned to Oxford, MS where his two daughters lived. While he had once been a strong advocate for secession, he began to urge for a compromise as the threat of war loomed. He was a man of great regard in the South, and opposed the war even though his own invective against the North may have contributed to Southern hostility. His home in Oxford was later burned by Union soldiers in 1862.
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1813

Entered Yale College in 1811 and graduated in 1813.

Lawyer; Business; Editor; Religious Calling; Political Office

Georgia in 1815

State Representative (GA) 1821

Member of the Judicial Reform Committeee of the General Assembly

Judge of the Superior Court (Ocmulgee, GA) 1822

Catalogue of the Litchfield Law School (Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Tiffany and Company, 1849), 12.

Dexter, Franklin Bowditch. Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of College History, Vol. 6. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1912.

Wade, John Donald. Augustus Baldwin Longstreet. The Macmillian Company, 1924.

Mayes, Edward. Genealogy of the Family of Longstreet. 1893.

Fitzgerald, O.P. Judge Longstreet: A Life Sketch. Nashville, TN: Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1891.

Longstreet, Augustus Baldwin. Georgia Scenes, Characters, Incidents, &c. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1870.