VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY
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eral Stevens, then chief engineer of the
"Army of Northern Virginia." Then came
his last assignment to duty as Adjutant
of the Hght artillery battalion famous in
history as "Pegram's," under the command
of the gallant Colonel William Johnson
Pegram. In this capacity he served with
distinguished gallantry, participating in all
ihe great battles from the \\'ilderness to
Five Forks, fought by the "Army of North-
ern X'irginia," including the retreat from
Petersburg to Appomattox. In September,
1864. the men of one of the batteries of
"Pegram's Battalion," after having been
personally commanded by Captain ]\IcCabe
in the desperate action of August 21st for
possession of the Weldon Railroad, unani-
mously petitioned for his permanent as-
signment to them as captain of the battery,
but this he positively declined, and urged
the appointment of the first lieutenant of the
battery, the captain having died in hospital,
whom he considered rightfully entitled to
the position. Early in 1865, he was made
Captain of Artillery on Colonel Pegram's
earnest personal recommendation and in-
sistance, and after Appomattox, with a
number of other young artillery officers, he
joined General Johnston's army at Greens-
boro, North Carolina, but within a few days
that army also surrendered and all active
service was ended in the Confederacy. He
was paroled in Richmond, in May, 1865.
In October, 1865, Captain McCabe found- ed the University School at Petersburg. Virginia, with which his name is linked in the history of education in Virginia, and from the beginning won for it the reputation of sending out from its walls young men of high ideals and sound scholarship. "Such a school as McCabe's would be an honor to any state." was written of it in the scholarly New York "Nation," November 26, 1885. In the "Atlantic Monthly," December. 1885. Charles Foster Smith said of it: "I know of nothing better the South can do in her schools than to take this school as a model." Dr. McCosh, of Princeton, June, 1882, in- cluded Captain McCabe with two other American teachers as "probably the best high-school instructors on this side of the water." The Rev. iVIoses D. Hoge said in a sermon preached in Petersburg, April, 1895, that McCabe's University School "reminded him of Rugby in her palmiest days." Dur- ing a long and honorable career, extending
from 1865 to 1901, when the head-master re-
tired and the school was closed, it main-
tained not only its high standard of scholar-
ship, but an even higher standard of honor
and lofty character among its pupils that
was one of its noblest distinctions. The
aim of Captain IMcCabe was to make his
boys in a genuine sense both gentlemen and
scholars, and how well he succeeded has
been worthily attested in the careers of most
of those who went out from its doors, im-
bued with the spirit of Thackeray's verse:
Who misses or who wins the prize, Go lose or conquer as you can,
But if you fail or if you rise.
Be each, pray God, a gentleman.
On the long roll of his pupils are to be read the names of scholars, lawyers, doctors, teachers, ministers and business men, many of whom became distinguished degree-men, prize-men, and honor-men of the higher in- stitutions of learning in America. "Mc- Cabe's" was a name to conjure with, not only in the halls of his own alma mater, the University of Virginia, but no less at the great institutions of the North, such as Har- vard and Yale, Columbia and Princeton, as well as at West Point and Annapolis. To have gone forth from "McCabe's University School" with honor was an "open sesame" at their gates. When in 1901, the school was closed, and the head-master retired from his school work, it was with a fame as a teacher second to that of none in America. During his head-mastership. Captain Mc- Cabe declined four professorships in leading colleges and universities in Virginia and elsewhere, and it is an open secret that w^hen in 1902 the consensus of educational opinion in the state seemed to demand that the new office of "President" should be established at the University of Virginia, Captain Mc- Cabe was the first choice of a majority of the P'oard of X'isitors, as then constituted, for this high position. But discussion dis- closed the fact that such an office could only be authorized by legislative act, and later, when the act was passed and the selection of a President came up before a new Board, Captain McCabe declined to allow the use of his name as a candidate, though strongly urged to do so by large numbers of the alumni. As is well known, the accomplished Dr. E. A. Alderman was elected, and Cap- tain McCabe has consistently been one of his
