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After tin- failure of the Conference < iovernor < iraham ^a\c notice in the Confederate Senate (hat lie would soon introduce a resolution in favor of opening negotiations with the United States upon the basis of a return to the Union by the- States of tin- Confederacy. Hut the notice was not favorably received, and the Confederacy went down to its doom. When the crash came he was the same calm, conservative statesman that he had ever been, and was chosen by ( iovernor Vance to accompany < iovernor Swain as an ambassador of peace to meet the incoming army of General Sherman. They sur- rendered the city of Raleigh to him and secured from him a promise of protection, which promise was, as a rule, observed. It was also through their efforts on this mission that the University was pro- tected from vandalism. Besides this mission Governor Swain was one of the North Carolinians who was invited to Washington by President Johnson in the spring of 1865, to consult on the ways of restoring the State to the Union. B. F. Moore (A. B., 1820) and Robert P. Dick (A. B. , 1843) were also members of this committee. It must be kept in mind also that the consent of the Federal ad- ministration to the Hampton Roads Conference, the last ray of hope of the Confederacy, had been brought about largely through the influence of Francis P. Blair, who had been a student here.* Per- haps no student of this University has had a more remarkable career. He was at first a free soiler; then a Republican. He was the one leader of the unconditional Union men in Missouri, and fused former Democrats and former Republicans into a single strong body of uncon- ditional Union men. The governor of the State and both houses of the assembly were Southern in sentiment, but Blair organized the German companies, which had been known as Wide-awakes in the presidential campaign, into companies of home guards, drilled them, armed them as he found means, and with them began to dominate the State. It was largely due to the influence of the Home Guards that a majority of 80,000 was given for the Union in February, 1861.
- Other alumni cast their fortunes with the Union as follows: Prof. Benj. S.
Hedrick differed so radically in his political views from the ruling element, and was so outspoken that public sentiment forced his dismission from the faculty as early as 1856; another member, Rev. Solomon Pool, escaped the same fortune, probably, by being more circumspect in his language; Junius B. Wheeler served as engineer, assistant professor at West Point, and brevet colonel; Edward Jones Mallett was paymaster-general, 1862-65; Willie P. Man-urn, Jr., was consul and vice-consul general in China and Japan, 1861- 1881.
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