The annual commencement of 1847 was rendered a literary festival of unusual interest, by the attendance of President Polk, and the Secretary of the Navy, Judge Mason, both of whom were alumni of the University.

The commencement of 1859 was rendered no less memorable by the visit of President Buchanan, and the Secretary of the Interior, Hon. Jacob Thompson, who was not only a graduate, but had been at one time a tutor in the Institution. How vivid is the recollection of those scenes in the minds of all who witnessed them! How interesting and imposing the assemblage of all that could give dignity or influence to a State, or shed the light of beauty and grace on these venerable cloisters and schools of learning. In 1859, apprehensions of the permanency of the Union were beginning to be excited by symptoms of dissatisfaction in the neighboring States. Secretary Thompson, in reply to the welcome addressed to him at his reception in front of Governor Swain's residence, referring to these ominous indications, congratulated the assembly on the steadiness of attachment to the Union everywhere manifested by the people of his native State. He was applauded with a vehemence which gave full assurance of the deep and universal loyalty of his hearers. President Buchanan repeatedly expressed his pleasure at these evidences of feeling which were reïterated whenever occasion offered. How little did he, how little did any one, foresee what changes a single year was to effect. On the evening preceding commencement-day, President Buchanan appeared upon the rostrum and performed an interesting part in the exercises. At the request of the Rev. Dr. Wheat, the then Professor of Rhetoric, he delivered the prize awarded to the best English writer in the Sophomore class, Eldridge E. Wright, of Memphis, Tenn., who afterward graduated with the highest distinction, and the most flattering hopes and promises of future usefulness. He fell, a captain of artillery, in defense of his battery at the battle of Murfreesboro. The two eldest sons of Dr. Wheat both fell in battle—one at Shiloh and the other in Virginia. Of the six college tutors then present but one survives. Of the crowd of trustees and distinguished North-Carolinians who surrounded that rostrum, time would fail me to tell of the prostrate hopes and darkened hearths; but in brief, I may say, that of the four hundred and thirty young men then listening with intense eagerness and prolonged applause to words of wisdom and affection from their chief magistrate, more than a fifth, in less than five years, fell in fratricidal strife on every battle-field from Pennsylvania to Texas. Could the curtain that in mercy vailed the future, have been that day withdrawn, what would have been the emotions of the audience? Could they have seen one hundred of those four hundred and thirty gay and gallant boys lying in all the ghastly and bloody forms of death on the battle-field; a like proportion with amputated limbs, or permanently impaired constitutions; and all, with few exceptions, seamed with honorable scars, would they not have recoiled horror-stricken from such a revelation of war as it really is? What would have been the effect on that veteran statesman could he have seen all this—seen his friend and associate in the councils of the nation an exile, wandering in foreign lands, and all the wide-spread havoc, ruin, and woe of a four years' merciless war darkly curtaining the broad and smiling land? In the providence of God he was childless. How many fathers of that goodly throng have gone down to the grave sorrowing—for sorrow slays as well as the sword; how many mothers, sisters, and wives refuse to be comforted, and long for the grave, and are glad when they find it!

I have selected the catalogue of 1859-60 referred to in the letter from Governor Swain to President Davis, as best calculated to show the results of the fearful change produced among us in the brief interval preceding the civil war.

The Senior class of 1860 consisted of eighty-four members. The subjoined table will show that every one of these able to bear arms, with perhaps a single exception, entered the service, and that more than a fourth of the entire number now fill soldiers' graves. The proportion of the wounded to the killed is ordinarily estimated as not smaller than three to one; and judging by this rule, it appears and is believed to be the fact, that very few of the whole class remained unscathed. Of the younger classes, my information is not sufficiently complete to justify the giving a list; but enough is ascertained to make it certain that the sacrifice of life among them was in very nearly the same proportion as among the Seniors. As a matter of undying interest to the people of my own State, and significant enough to those of others, I present this record of the sons of her University.

Adams, Robert B. In service from South-Carolina.
Alexander, Sydenham B., Capt. 42d N.C. Regt.
Anderson, Lawrence M., Lieut. Killed at Shiloh.
Askew, George W., Capt. Miss. Regt.
Attmore, Isaac T. Killed in Virginia.
Baird, William W., Lieut. N.C. Regt.
Barbee, Algernon S., Lieut. Com. Dept. Army of the West.
Barrett, Alexander, Lieut. 49th N.C. Regt.
Battle, Junius C., Killed at Sharp's Mountain.
Bond, Lewis, Chief Ord. to Gen. Jackson.
Borden, William H., Lieut. 50th N.C. Regt.
Bowie, John R., Sergt. Signal Corps, Louisiana.
Brickell, Sterling H., Capt, 12th N.C. Regt. Resigned from wounds.
Brooks, William M., 3d N.C. Cav.
Bruce, Charles, Jr. Killed at Richmond.
Bryan, George P., Capt. 2d N.C. Regt. Killed.
Bullock, Richard A., Com. Sergt. 12th N.C. Regt.
Butler, Pierce M., 1st Lieut. 2d S.C. Cav.
Cole, Alexander T., Capt. 23d N.C. Regt.
Coleman, Daniel R., 20th N.C. Regt.
Cooper, Robert E., Chaplain Cobb's Legion.
Cooper, Thomas W., 1st Lieut. 11th N.C. Regt. Killed at Gettysburgh.
Daniel, S. Venable, 1st Lieut. 17th N.C. Regt.
Davis, Samuel C., Lieut. 4th N.C. Regt.
Davis, Thomas W., Lieut. 8th N.C. Regt
Drake, Edwin L., Col. Tenn. Regt. Cav.
Fain, John H.D., Capt. 33d N.C. Regt. Killed at Petersburg, 2d April, 1865.
Ferrand, Horace, Louisiana Regt.
Fogle, James O.A., Medical Dept. Richmond.
Franklin, Samuel R. Died in service.
Garrett, Woodston L., Lieut. 8th Ala. Cav.
Gay, Charles E., Lieut. Miss. Artillery.
Graham, James A., Capt. 27th N.C. Regt.
Haigh, Charles, Sergt.-Major 5th N.C. Cav.
Hale, Edward J., Jr., Capt. A.A.G. to Gen. Lane.
Hardin, Edward J., Lieut. and Adjt. Conscript Bureau.
Hays, Robert B., Forrest's Cavalry.
Headen, William J., Lieut. 26th N.C. Regt. Killed.
Henry, William W., Capt. Artillery, Army of the West.
Hightower, Samuel A., 26th Louisiana Regt.
Holliday, Thomas C., Capt. A.A.G. to Gen. Davis. Killed.
Houston, R. Bruce B., Lieut. 52d N.C. Regt.
Jones, H. Francis, Lieut. A.D.C. to Gen. Young. Killed.
Jones, Walter J., Heavy Artillery. Afterward 40th N.C. Regt.
Kelly, James, Presbyterian clergyman.
Kelly, John B., 26th N.C. Regt.
King, William J., Medical Dept. Richmond.
Lutterloh, Jarvis B., Lieut. 56th N.C. Regt. Killed at Gum Swamp.
Martin, Eugene S., Lieut. 1st Battery Heavy Artillery.
Martin, George S., Capt. Tenn. Art'y. Killed by bushwhackers.
McCallum, James B., Lieut. 51st N.C. Regt. Killed at Bermuda Hundreds.
McClelland, James C. Died in 1861, in Arkansas.
McKethan, Edwin T., Lieut. 51st N.C. Regt.
McKimmon, Arthur N., Q.M. Dept. Raleigh.
McKimmon, James, Jr., Lieut. Manly's Battery.
Mebane, Cornelius, Adjt. 6th N.C. Regt.
Mebane, John W. Capt. Tenn. Artillery. Killed at Kenesaw Mountain.
Micou, Augustin, Lieut. and A.A.G. Drew's Battalion.
Mimms, Thomas S., Western Army.
Nicholson, William T., Capt. 37th N.C. Regt. Killed.
Pearce, Oliver W., 3d Regt. N.C. Cav.
Pittman, Reddin G., 1st Lieut. Eng. Dep.
Pool, Charles C.
Quarles, George McD. Died in service.
Ryal, Tims, Louisiana Regt.
Royster, Iowa, Lieut. 37th N.C. Regt. Killed at Gettysburgh.
Sanders, Edward B., Sergt.-Major 35th N.C. Regt.
Saunders, Jos. H., Lieut.-Col. 33d N.C. Regt.
Scales, Erasmus D., Capt. and Com. Sub. 2d N.C. Cav.
Smith, Farquhard, Jr., 3d N.C. Cav.
Smith, Norfleet, 1st Lieut. 3d N.C. Cav.
Smith, Thomas L. Killed at Vicksburgh.
Sterling, Edward G. Died in service.
Strong, Hugh. In South-Carolina service.
Sykes, Richard L. In Mississippi service.
Taylor, George W., Ass't. Surgeon, 26th La.
Thompson, Samuel M., Colonel Tenn. Regt.
Thorp, John H., Capt. 47th N.C. Regt.
Vaughan, Vernon H. In Alabama service.
Wallace, James A., 44th N.C. Regt.
Wier, Samuel P., Lieut. 46th N.C. Regt. Killed at Fredericksburgh.
Whitfield, Cicero, Sergt. 53d N.C. Regt.
Wilson, George L. Died.
Wooster, William A., Capt. 1st N.C. Regt. Killed at Richmond.

Of field-officers in the Confederate service, at least thirteen illustrious names are among the Alumni of the University, namely:

Lieut.-General Leonidas Polk,
Brig.-Generals Geo. B. Anderson,
Rufus Barringer,
L. O'B. Branch,
Thomas L. Clingman,
Robert D. Johnston,
Gaston Lewis,
James Johnston Pettigrew,
Matt. W. Ransom,
Ashley W. Spaight; and
Adjutant-Generals
R.C. Gatlin,
John F. Hoke.

Generals Polk, Anderson, Branch, and Pettigrew were killed, and all the others (with the exception of the two bureau officers) severely wounded, and most of them more than once.

I regret that my information in regard to many other gallant field-officers is at present too imperfect to justify the enumeration; much less am I able to give a correct list of subaltern officers, and the unrecorded dead. It will be a labor of love to continue my inquiries, in the hope of being able at some future day to present a suitable memorial of all our loved and lost.

Beloved till Time can charm no more,
And mourned till Pity's self be dead.