Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/17

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\ II. Ai.t'MNi IN CONFEDERATE EXECUTIVE SERVK i

S. me of her alumni were in the executive service. John Manning was a receiver of the Confederate States. Jacob Thompson was confidential agent to Canada. His object was to open communica- tions with secret organizations of anti-war men in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, to arrange for their organi/alion and arming so that they, when strong enough, might demand a cessation of hostilities on the part of the Federal government. Thompson was of much service also in collecting and forwarding supplies, conducting communications with the outside world, &c. He acquired no little notoriety in con- nection with the attempted release of Confederate prisioners from Rock Island, Camp Chase and Chicago; suffered the unjust accusa- tion of sending infected clothing into the union lines from Canada, and came perilously near having the distinction conferred upon him of being made the scape goat to bear the infamy of the assassination of Lincoln.

Two sons of the University served as the head of the Confederate Department of Justice. Thomas Bragg was the second and George Davis the fourth Attorney General.

Other alumni served their individual States in various civil ways. The three commissioners of the North Carolina Board of Claims elected in 1861 were all University men, B. F. Moore, S. F. Phillips, and P. H. Winston. When an agent was appointed later in the war to audit the financial dealings of the State with the Confederacy, P. H. Winston, the third member of the Board of Claims, was chosen for that responsible position. George V. Strong became Confed- erate District Attorney for North Carolina in 1862; Robert B. Gilliam and William M. Shipp became judges of the superior court in North Carolina in 1862 and 1863 respectively. Thomas C. Manning was chairman of the commission appointed by the governor of Louisiana to investigate the outrages committed by Federal troops under Gen. Banks during the invasion of Western Louisiana in 1863 and 1864. Manning and H. M. Polk were members of the Louisiana secession convention of 1861, and John T. Wheat was its secretary. John Bragg was a member of the Alabama, and A. H. Carrigan of the Arkansas convention and Arthur F. Hopkins was sent by the gov- ernor of Alabama as special agent to Virginia. Were it possible for us to obtain the complete history of each one of our students in the