In 1861 Georgetown College was seventy-two years old, of venerable age in the young republic. Its students were as representative a group as could be found in any educational institution of the country; sons of farmers, statesmen, soldiers, physicians, lawyers and businessmen. They came from all sections of the country, and from Latin America. Most were from the South. In 1858 the College had more students from Louisiana than from the District of Columbia.

There were many Marylanders, especially from Charles and St. Mary's counties, although Baltimore accounted for a good number. The coastal cities of Georgia and the Carolinas were well represented, and Northern Virginia, particularly the areas around Loudoun, Fauquier and Fairfax counties sent many young men, principally non-Catholic, to learn the classics and the natural sciences at a school whose reputation had already become nation-wide for its breadth of curriculum and its discipline.

Members of the Congress and Officers of the Army, while stationed in the Capital, sent their boys to Georgetown College as a matter of course. The fact that the school was operated under Roman Catholic auspices did not militate against the true catholicity of its student body. Archbishop John Carroll in 1789 had seen to that, providing that Georgetown "will be open to students of every religious profession. They, who in this respect, differ from the Superintendent of the Academy, will be at liberty to frequent the places of worship and instruction appointed by their parents; but with respect to their moral conduct,  all must be subject to general and uniform discipline."

John Gilmary Shea, in his Memorial of the First Centenary of Georgetown College, published in 1891, records that at the time of the elevation of Father John Early, S.J., to the Presidency of the institution "there was a feverish condition, not marked then, but noticed subsequently, and which manifested itself in increased interest throughout the country in military drill and exercise. The young and inexperienced seemed to feel by a kind of instinct a fact that statesmen were blind to, that the country was approaching a moment when every man would be called upon to bear arms."

The College was no exception. The College cadets, trained by Father James Clark, S.J., intensified their program of drills and exhibitions. Father Clark, a West Point graduate before entering the Society of Jesus, had been a classmate of cadets Robert Edward Lee and Joseph Eccleston Johnston.

Shea further reports, "The scholars who had entered on a course of military training as cadets not only had their usual exercises, their marches to the Villa and through the streets of Georgetown, but on the 22nd of February (1860) they marched to Washington City to take part in the inauguration of the equestrian statue of George Washington; and when, in May, the ambassadors from the Emperor of Japan visited Georgetown College, the cadets escorted them back to the national capital."

"The College, in September, 1860, threw open its doors to welcome old students and new, and the number who entered showed how well the old reputation had been maintained. But the exiting political campaign, marked by divided counsels on the one hand, by impassioned and united energy on the other, was near its close. The election in November, 1860, showed the victory of the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln. When the Southern states resolved to secede, and the border states showed a determination to join them, the dangerous condition of the whole country sensibly affected Georgetown College. It had always received many pupils from the Southern states, and if the border states cast their fortunes with the South, its position would be one of probable danger. "Shortly after the New Year, 1861, had opened, the approaching conflict was seriously evident on the campus. On January 2, 1861, some of the Southern students left for their homes at the desire of their families. Students continued to drop out in small numbers until the latter part of April when more than a hundred left within a day or two. Northern families also began to be alarmed, and many of the Northern students went home. In April, the President of the College received the following letter from Southern members of the Senior Class.

Georgetown College, April 10th, 1861.

Rev. John Early, President, Georgetown College, D.C.

Respected Sir:

We the undersigned students of the Philosophy Class of Georgetown College, from conviction of duty we owe alike to our parents, and to ourselves, with a high regard for every member of the faculty, and with due respect to yourself individually, and full acknowledgement of your official position as Rector of the Institution, beg leave to present to you this petition, as an earnest on our part, requesting you to exert your influence in order to effect what of late has almost become a necessity with us, viz: our departure from College.

We earnestly press upon you to consider that no motives of displeasure or insubordination have prompted us to resort to this measure, but merely from our inability to apply ourselves to our studies with that ardent zeal which is required of us. We desire to take leave of our "Alma Mater" in a quiet and honorable manner.

Our presence here any longer would be attended but with little good to us, for we are giving utterance to a plain and undisguised truth when we say that there is not one amongst us who is now able to devote that time, interest, energy and requisite spirit to the pursuits of the class, which our parents, our friends, our teachers and yourself, Reverend Sir, have just and reasonable claims in expecting of us; while all we have most dear on earth, our Country (the South), our parents and our brethren call loudly upon our presence at our respective homes. It is scarcely necessary for us to inform you that we should desire the same favor for all the Students of the College; and were it possible, we earnestly demand of you a suspension of the College until September. That such a step would be prudent, the general aspect of affairs manifestly proves. That civil war is at hand, and may at any moment fall among us with all its horrors, and when we are least prepared to protect ourselves against its dangers, most certainly cannot escape your observation. We are all old students and would not willingly hazard the opportunities so generously proffered by the faculty for the reception of the benefits and blessings of Education; and were it not for causes so pressing, never should we have hesitated to continue among those who have always shown themselves industrious and interested in what they deemed advantageous to us. But circumstances which are rendering the danger of longer stay, daily more palpable and imposing, force us to think seriously of our personal security.

Besides, there are other considerations which especially concern us as members of the Philosophy Class of a more delicate and personal character. Our venerable teacher Fr. Nota) has perceived that we are not as diligent as we should be, and have been; and he himself knowing, and appreciating the difficulties under which we labor, has twice expressed to us, in what appeared to be serious and well considered terms, his desire that we should be immediately absolved from further obligation and dismissed with our diplomas. He sees no doubt that as the times become troublesome, our respective positions become more difficult and embarrassing, and seems earnest in his wishes that our studies should be suspended.

We would not venture to predict what would be our mutual relations before the end of this Session, were we to continue together; we, in constant pain and fear as to what calamities may take place, and he, unprepared for his efforts in our behalf, not to say disquieted with out in application; but it may be just to surmise that they would be of a tendency either pleasant or beneficial. We earnestly hope that your views on this subject may coincide with ours and those of our teacher.

Respectfully yours,
G.A. Fournet, La.
Wm. Beresford Carr, La.
George I. Murray
Isaac Parsons, Jr.
H. Quicksall
Wm. H. Barrett, Ga.
L. P. Briant, La.
John J. Eliot
William S. Snow
F.P.B. Sands

Some Southern lads remained, however, for it is recorded in the University Archives that in the early Spring of 1861, Captain Frederick E. Prime of the United States Topographical Engineers came to Georgetown accompanied by an old student of the College to survey the area from the elevated windows of Old South with a view to selecting camping sites for the troops converging on Washington. While the officers were inside, their horses attracted the attention of the students, and the remaining students formed a line on either side of the road. As the Army officers left, one of the students took off his cap and cried, "Three cheers for Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy." Captain Prime took it in good part, merely answering: "Hurrah! boys, hurrah!, I was once a boy myself!'

James Ryder Randall, of the Class of 1856, left the College before graduation for reasons of health, and obtained a teaching position in Louisiana. An ardent secessionist, he was declared unfit for military service, but followed the fortunes of the Confederacy with great energy and assisted it through his gifts as a poet. Thus it was that on April twentieth he read of the "Baltimore Massacre" in which the passage of the Sixth Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry through Baltimore was jeered by some of the local citizens of Southern sympathies. Jeers were followed by the throwing of stones, and the Infantrymen retaliated with gun fire. The early press reports of the affair listed among the civilian dead, the name of Francis X. Ward who had been Randall's roommate in his College days. Stung with chagrin, Randall wrote the words of "Maryland, My Maryland!", calling upon the citizens of his native state to secede and "Avenge the patriotic gore which flecked the streets of Baltimore." Later he learned that Ward had not been killed, only slightly injured, but the poem, set to the music of the German song "O Tannenbaum," lives on as the stirring state song of the Maryland Free state. In these later years the stanza urging "Remember Carroll's sacred trust," is more apt to be sung than the one dealing with "the Northern scum."

Again, in August, 1861, Randall learned of the death in battle of another College friend, Placide Bossier, of Louisiana, killed in action at the battle of Oak Hills, Mo. This time the report was true, and Randall's pen produced a requiem for his friend typical of the romanticism of the period:

Ah, friend! in the tender College time
No evil deed could stain thee, And now' mid the combat's iron chime,
In purity they've slain thee.
Sans peur et sans reproche to live
Sans peur the foe defying
Sans peur et sans reproche we give
Thy epitaph when dying

When the Southern bullet sang the knell
Of the ravaging invader,
Then, then triumphantly he fell,
Our spotless young Crusader.
With the loud hurrah and the dauntless tramp
of the charging Creole yeomen,
He fell where the Cherubim encamp
With his face to the flying foemen.

The blood moon guides its torch of night
Through the smoke envolumed valleys,
And the hillocks tell where the reddest fight
Shook the quick, convulsive rallies;
In the foremost phalanx he shall rest
His head in the dust reclining
The rifle shielding the soldier breast
The cross on a saint-heart shining!

The student body had dropped to fifty when on May 4, 1861, Secretary Stanton ordered the College to prepare to house the Sixty Ninth Regiment of Infantry, New York National Guard. Little time was allowed for preparations to receive the regiment for before nightfall the troops arrived, nearly 1,400 of them, to occupy the south side of the quadrangle, with the Colonel of the Regiment setting up his headquarters in the Fathers' recreation room. On May 8, President Lincoln arrived at the College and reviewed the Regiment.

Continue Part II of Introduction