Augustus Baldwin Longstreet

Augustus Baldwin Longstreet

Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, 1790-1870

• Father: William Longstreet
• Mother: Hannah Fitzrandolph

• Augustus Baldwin Longstreet was born on 22 September 1790 in Augusta, Richmond County, Georgia.
• He married Frances Eliza Parke.
• William Barnes Wood wrote on 1 August 1848, from Oxford, Georgia, in a letter to his mother Evelina Alexander Barnes Wood in Tuskegee, Alabama, "Judge L— resigned his office here because he thought he would get the Presidency in oxford Mississippi. He was certain he would he get it, but was disappointed. Some on[e] was a head of him. I was very sorry he was not Elected. He has quit taking boarders. I have engaged board at Mrs Lamars one of the most Respectable families in oxford.
• Augustus Baldwin Longstreet became a widower at the 13 October 1869 death of his wife Frances Eliza Parke.
• Augustus Baldwin Longstreet died on 9 July 1870 at age 79 in Oxford, Lafayette County, Mississippi.
• He was interred at Oxford Memorial Cemetery, Oxford, Lafayette County, Mississippi.
• The following appeared on 19 July 1870 in The Georgia Weekly Telegraph and Journal & Messenger: (Augusta, July 16) Judge A. B. Longstreet died at Oxford, Mississippi, in his eightieth year.
• The following appeared on 26 July 1870 in The Georgia Weekly Telegraph and Journal & Messenger:
                      The Late Judge Longstreet.
       The death of this distinguished Georgian, which was only announced by telegraph Sunday evening, took place on the 9th inst., at Oxford, Mississippi, where he has two married daughters living--Mrs. L. Q. C. Lamar, and Mrs. Henry R. Branham.
       Judge Longstreet was born, as we learn from a notice of his death in the Chronicle & Sentinel, of Sunday, in Augusta, on the 22d of September, 1790, so that had he lived till that date next September, he would have been eighty years old.
       Of his parentage, life, labors, etc., the Chronicle gives the following sketch:
       His father, William Longstreet, was a native of New Jersey, who migrated to Georgia early in life, and became distinguished as an inventor, his name being honorable associated with those of fulton and Whitney in the early application of steam to navigation, and in the first improvements of the cotton gin. At the time of his death there survived him four sons--James, the father of Gen. Longstreet, Gilbert, Augustus, the subject of this notice, and William--none of whom now live; and one daughter, Mrs. Rebecca Camfield, a venerable, beloved member of this community. The early life of Judge Longstreet was spent in the city of his nativity. At the fit time of youth he was placed at the celebrated of the Rev. Moses Waddell, at Willington, South Carolina, where he became the cherished associate of George McDuffie and of others of that school who left their mark upon the history of their time. From Willington, he entered Yale College, and there graduated in 1813. Receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts at the hands of the Rev. Timothy Dwight, then the distinguished President of Yale, he prosecuted the study of law in the law school of Jas. Gould, at Litchfield, Connecticut, and was admited to the Bar ad eundem, from the Lichtfield Law School, in the Superior Court of Richmond county, in the year 1815. Shortly after his admission to the Bar he wedded Miss Eliza Parks, of Greene County, and removed to the village of Greensborough. It was at this period of his life, and in this village, noted for the wit and humor of its society and for its charming hospitality, that he first began the inimitable humorous sketches of wild life, which since has published to the world as "Georgia Scenes." The room is still shown in this charming village where "Longstreet wrote his Georgia Scenes," and many tales are handed down by tradition touiching his wit and mirth-provoking humor. In the year 1822 he was the representative of Greene count in the General Assembly of Georgia. In 1821 he was made Judge of the Superior Court for the Ocmulgee Circuit, and acquired the title of Judge, which never afterwards forsook him, by which title he is best known throughout the State.
       In 1824, having returned to this city and begun the full practice of his profession, he became a candidate for Congress from this district. In the midst of the canvass, with every prospect of success, the sudden death of one of his children afflicted him so sorely, as to induce him to withdraw from the contest, and impressed him so seriously as to cause him to desire to enter the christian ministry. In 1838 he was received by Conference, as a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and assigned for the following year, with the Rev. Caleb Key, to the pastorate of the church at Augusta, and discharged faithfully the ministrations of his office throughout the duration of the terrible scourge which swept our city that year as a malignant epidemic.
       In 1839 Judge Longstreet was elected President of Emory College. Subsequently he had filled the same chair in the Centenary College in Louisiana, in the University of South Carolina, and in the University of Mississippi. The latter position Judge Longstreet held at the outbreak of the war.
       Judge Longstreet was an ardent politician, and devoted to the cause of State Rights. His articles over the signature of "Bob Short," in the days of nullification, exerted a powerful influence on the public mind, and during that period of excitement he established and edited the Augusta Sentinel, which, in 1838, was consolidated with the Augusta Chronicle, under the name of the Augusta Chronicle & Sentinel.
       In all the relations of life this venerable man was without reproach. Full of years and honors, he has gone down to the grave, leaving behind a name and memory that will be most tenderly and reverently cared for by those who knew him best. He was indeed clarum et venerabile nomen. Georgia will cherish and honor it to the latest generation.
• Augustus B. Longstreet (1790-1870) . . . Augustus Baldwin Longstreet was born in Augusta in September 1790 to Hannah Randolph and William Longstreet. . . . After the term of Longstreet's judgeship ended, he and his family moved to Augusta. He joined the Methodist church in 1827 and felt called to preach the following year. In the fall of 1828 he was licensed to preach locally. His full-time ministerial career began nearly a decade later in December 1838, when he became a traveling Methodist minister. . . . Longstreet's brief career as a full-time minister ended when he became president of Emory College in Oxford in January 1840. In 1844 he came to national prominence when he played a central role in the division of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Four years later, in 1848, he resigned his post at Emory, and the following year he served briefly as president of Centenary College in Jackson, Louisiana. He was president of the University of Mississippi from 1849 to 1856. After resigning his post in Mississippi, the sixty-five-year-old Longstreet considered himself retired. He left retirement in 1857, however, when he was offered the presidency of South Carolina College (later the University of South Carolina). Longstreet served South Carolina College until late 1861, by which time most of his students had left school to join the Confederate effort in the Civil War (1861-65). Longstreet then moved to Oxford, Mississippi, where his ill wife had been living with one of their daughters. In December 1862 Federal troops reached Oxford and, using Longstreet's papers as kindling, burned his house. The Longstreets relocated to Oxford, Georgia, and then to Columbus. Longstreet served the Confederacy as he could with his pen. His efforts included a leaflet of encouragement for Confederate soldiers and letters of advice to his nephew, the Confederate general James Longstreet. After the war Longstreet returned to Oxford, Mississippi, where he died on July 9, 1870. . . .
       From the online New Georgia Encyclopedia.

• Last Edited: 19 Nov 2014