Thursday, July 26, 2018

George Mason Graham to Governor Robert C. Wickliffe, November 30, 1859

Alexandria, Nov. 30, 1859.

Dear Sir: . . . Only six members of the Board of Supervisors convened on Monday 28th and the same number again on yesterday. Dr. [S. A.] Smith was sick, but his presence would not have made a quorum. So we did nothing — only talked. There was this done however; that as the only means of getting the money from Doctor Smith with which to prepare the building for the reception and accommodation of cadets, I gave him my individual obligation to hold him harmless, which we all thought a rather unnecessary piece of fastidiousness on the part of the Doctor. . .

Major Sherman will now go to New Orleans on Saturday to make the requisite purchases. . .

I was also requested in the same capacity, to call another meeting of the Board for Saturday, Dec. 10th, which I have done, but do not anticipate any different result, as Mr. Sanford is in Virginia.

As it is manifest that Mr. Henry Gray will never attend any of our meetings, I wish very much that you would oblige us by at once appointing Doctor Lewis Magruder in his stead. He is a gentleman of education and intelligence, a son-in-law of Mr. R. C. Hynson, stirring, active man, with a growing family, and will make a good and attentive member, is a warm advocate for the military feature of the school, to injure which in indirect modes the two or three opponents of it in the Board are now making efforts. If you can at once dispatch an appointment to Doctor Magruder, it will reach him in time for the next meeting, and greatly relieve me, for I cannot make head against Manning and Smith, with Ryan1 playing “fast and loose” between us all the time.
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1 Judge T. C. Manning, Dr. S. A. Smith, and Michael Ryan, all members of the Board. Manning and Smith were the chief opponents of the military system. — Ed.

SOURCES: The article is abstracted in Walter L. Fleming’s, General W.T. Sherman as College President, p. 64-5

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