Dispatches from the Civil War

Noble efforts, questioNable calls aNd dariNg deeds by Dartmouth alumni iN the War betWeeN the states. One hundred fifty years ago Dartmouth alumni and students were not immune to the patriotic—and rebellious—fervor of the times. The College’s plaque honoring “the sons of Dartmouth” who died in the war, housed in the Rauner Library lobby, lists 73 alumni, 63 of whom died fighting for the Union and 10 for the Confederacy. The class of 1863 alone sent 56 men into battle—53 for the Union and three for the Confederacy. In 1944 College President Ernest Martin Hopkins, class of 1901, declared in a speech that during the Civil War “no college had a larger portion of her men enrolled in the armed forces,” according to historian Charles Wood. Here are just a few of their