Augustus Baldwin Longstreet
Who was Augustus Baldwin Longstreet?
American journalist (1790–1870)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Augustus Baldwin Longstreet was born on September 22, 1790, in Augusta, Georgia, and became an influential figure in the antebellum American South. Throughout his life, he worked as a lawyer, Methodist minister, journalist, educator, and humorist, gaining influence in legal, religious, literary, and academic areas. He died on July 9, 1870, in Oxford, Mississippi, having seen both the rise and the devastating fall of the Confederate cause he strongly supported.
Before Fame
Augustus Baldwin Longstreet went to the Waddel School in South Carolina and then attended Yale University, graduating in 1813. He studied law with Tapping Reeve, who also taught John C. Calhoun, at the Litchfield Law School in Connecticut. After that, he returned to Georgia to pass the bar and start his legal career. He also joined the Mystical Seven, a secret society at Yale with other well-known Southern members.
Key Achievements
- Authored Georgia Scenes (1835), a landmark work in American regional humor and Southern literature
- Served as president of four Southern universities: Emory College, Centenary College of Louisiana, University of Mississippi (twice), and South Carolina College
- Founded and edited the Augusta State Rights' Sentinel, an influential Georgia newspaper
- Mentored Confederate General James Longstreet, one of the highest-ranking officers in the Confederate Army
- Helped establish a tradition of vernacular, local-color writing that influenced subsequent generations of American humorists
Did You Know?
- 01.Longstreet published many of the Georgia Scenes sketches under two pseudonyms, 'Hall' and 'Baldwin,' before the collection was published under his own name in 1835.
- 02.Edgar Allan Poe reviewed Georgia Scenes favorably in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1836, calling it a vivid and original work.
- 03.Longstreet served as president of the University of Mississippi on two separate occasions, a distinction unusual even among prolific academic administrators of the era.
- 04.He was ordained as a Methodist minister in 1838, adding clerical authority to his already substantial legal and literary reputation.
- 05.His nephew James Longstreet, whom he helped raise, became one of General Robert E. Lee's most trusted corps commanders, known as 'Old Pete' to his troops.