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Augustus Longstreet Biography

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LONGSTREET, Augustus Baldwin (1790-1870). An American lawyer, educator, and humorist, born in Augusta, Ga., Sept. 22, 1790. He graduated at Yale (1813) and practiced law in Georgia, becoming a district judge in 1822 and holding the office for several years. He then resumed practice and did editorial work in Augusta, where he established the Sentinel, soon merged with the Chronicle (1838). He became a Methodist minister and in a year was made president of Emory College (1839). After nine years he accepted the presidency of Centenary College, Louisiana, then of the University of Mississippi. After six years in the last position he resigned and became a planter, but was tempted by the presidency of South Carolina College (1857), and in a few years he was back again at his old presidency in Mississippi. He had a great sectional reputation as a speaker and as a vehement States'-rights man, and he was a voluminous writer. His fame is based, however, on a single book, Georgia Scenes, originally published in newspapers, then gathered into a volume at the South, and finally issued in New York in 1840. It is said that he disowned the second edition (1867) and tried to destroy the first. He died in Oxford, Miss., Sept. 9, 1870.