Longstreet, Augustus Baldwin

Longstreet, Augustus Baldwin (1790–1870) lawyer, author, educator, editor; born in Augusta, Ga. He graduated from Yale (1813) and attended the Litchfield (Conn.) Law School (1813–14) before being admitted to the Georgia bar (1815) and settling in Greensboro, Ga. He served in the state legislature (1821) and then as a Georgia Superior Court judge (1822–25) before returning to Augusta to practice law. He wrote a series of 18 humorous sketches for the Southern Recorder that were first published anonymously in 1835 as Georgia Scenes, Characters and Incidents Etc., in the First Half Century of the Republic (republished under his name in 1840). Popular in their day, they have little literary standing but are known for foreshadowing the frontier vernacular writings of others such as George Washington Harris and Mark Twain. Ordained as a Methodist minister in 1838, he turned to a career as college president: Emory College (Ga.) (1839–48), Centenary College (La.) (1849), the University of Mississippi (1849–56), and the University of South Carolina (1857–65). He had already declared his sympathies when he founded and edited the Augusta State Rights Sentinel (1834–36); he supported secession and after the Civil War he wrote articles justifying the Southern position. He also wrote short stories and a novel.